found at Manchester that the voting was considerably more
rapid, and therefore less expensive, than under the old system; that only
80 cards out of 11,475 were rejected as informal; and that, the
representatives of candidates being present to check false statements of
identity, and the public outside being debarred from receiving information
what voters had voted, the ballot rather decreased the risk of personation.
At Manchester the cards were not numbered consecutively, as in Victoria, so
that (assuming the officials to be free from corruption) no scrutiny could
have detected by whom particular votes were given. At Stafford the
returning-officer stamped each card before giving it to the voter, the die
of the stamp having been finished only on the morning of the election. By
this means the possibility was excluded of what was known as "the Tasmanian
Dodge," by which a corrupt voter gave to the returning-officer, or placed
in the box, a blank non-official ticket, and carried out from the booth his
official card, which a corrupt agent then marked for his candidate, and
gave so marked to corrupt voter No. 2 (before he entered the booth) on
condition that he also would bring out his official card, and so on _ad
libitum_; the agent thus obtaining a security for his bribe, unless the
corrupt voter chose to disfranchise himself by making further marks on the
card. At the close of 1870 the ballot was employed in the election of
members for the London School Board under the Education Act of that year.

In 1872 W. E. Forster's Ballot Act introduced the ballot in all
parliamentary and municipal elections, except parliamentary elections for
universities; and the code of procedure prescribed by the act was adopted
by the Scottish Education Board in the first School Board election (1873)
under the Education (Scotland) Act 1872. The Ballot Act not only abolished
public nominations of candidates, but dealt with the offence of personation
and the expenses of elections.

As practised in the United Kingdom, a white paper is used on which the
names of the candidates are printed in alphabetical order, the voter
filling up with a X the blank on the right-hand opposite the name he votes
for. The paper, before being given out, is marked by the presiding-officer
on both sides with an official stamp, which is kept secret, and cannot be
used for a second election within seven years. The paper is marked on the
back with the same number as the cou