Ballot Act
Act of Parliament introduced in 1872 by William Ewart Gladstone. 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 voters. The original idea of secret voting had already been proposed by Lord Hartington in 1870 and was part of the six proposals of the Chartists. The General Election of 1880 is said to be the first election of Parliament which showed a significant difference, since landowners' direct influence had been diminished by Ballot Act and were no longer directly 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 sent 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's 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 spent 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.
Sources
Marriott, John Arthur Ransome. England since Waterloo. N.p.: N.p., 1913.
Pearce, Robert. Government and reform 1815-1918. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1994.