The Jury's Secret Ballot

Two ballots were used in the voting process, one with a hollow axis (see middle ballot above) and one with a solid axis (all the others).  The hollow ballot was for conviction, while the solid was for acquittal.  The jurors walked up to two jars, one of bronze and the other of wood. Ballots placed in the wooden jar did not count, while those put in the bronze jar did.  As the jurors carried their two ballots to these jars, they gripped the axis of each ballot with two fingers so that no one in the courtroom could see what their voted was as they placed them in the jars.  The epsilon (E) on the ballot on the far left is an indication that this ballot was used in the courtroom assigned by lot to that letter (Aristotle's The Athenian Constitution 68).


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