Ballot box

The ballot box is a closed vessel with slot for carrying a secret ballot or vote with election or ballot.

The voters tick employed in a voting booth ( Germany, Austria ) - or at home ( Switzerland ), ie without any urn - unobserved and unaffected one or more ballot or ballots and insert them then folded or in an envelope in the ballot box - may be issued or in the Abstimmungs-/Wahlumschlag, the abgschickt in a return envelope, or in a voting and polling station ( Switzerland ). The sealed and usually sealed ballot box is emptied after the end of the election or vote - or in a Auszähllokal the ballots received ( Switzerland ) - that the election or ballot can be counted. If the ballot box still transported before the count, it will if not previously done, to prevent tampering, sealed. Transparent ballot boxes are required, for example in France and to prevent elections thus can be manipulated so that before the actual ballot already ballots were placed in the urn.

There are also voting systems without ballot, for example, where different colored balls are thrown into the urn. However, these are not common in state elections.