View source for Ballot Act

[[William Ewart Gladstone]] introduced the 1872 Ballot Act, which stated that elections for the British Parliament and municipal governments shall be done in secret and thus anonymously ( i.e. secret ballot) to reduce the effects of blackmailing, bribe and coercion on the votes. The original idea of secret voting had thus already been proposed by Lord Hartington in 1870. The General Election of 1880 is said to be the first election of Parliament which showed a significant difference, since landowners interests were no longer represented in the results of the election. 

Before the introduction of the Ballot Act, landowners, politicians and employers used to influence voters by having representatives send to the polling stations to check their leaseholders and dependants vote. Bribe was common and many voters received money and grants from different sides to profit from political competition (depicted for example in [[Charles Dickens]] ''The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club'', Chapter XII, p.158). [[The Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act]] of 1883 made influences on the vote finally criminal and limited the amount of money which was to be spend on electoral matters.

The standardized and sealed ballot used for the new voting procedures was first used in Australia in 1856 and was thus called ''Australian ballot''.