Blackballing

Blackballing is a rejection in a traditional form of secret ballot, where a white ball or ballot constitutes a vote in support and a black ball signifies opposition. The system is commonly used where an organization's rules provide that one or two objections, rather than a percentage of the vote (for example, more than 50%), are sufficient to defeat a proposition. Since the seventeenth century, these rules have commonly applied to elections to membership of many gentlemen's clubs and similar institutions such as Masonic lodges and fraternities.

The principle of such election rules in a club is that it tends to preserve the current ethos of the club by ensuring that candidates are congenial to (almost) all the existing members. As a public difference of opinions could be divisive, the election is secret.

In America, members of fraternal clubs often voted at their meetings without paper ballots as early as the 17th century. In order to progress, votes had to be unanimous in nature, as a single vote against was enough to apply veto. A blackball box was used instead of paper ballots for this reason.

Process

A large supply of black and white balls is provided for voters. Each voter audibly casts a single ball into the ballot box under cover of the box, or of a combination of a cloth and the box itself, so that observers can see who votes but not how they are voting.