=Manner of Holding Elections.=--Before an election can be held, due notice must be given of the time and place at which it is to be held and the offices to be filled or the questions of public policy to be submitted to the voters. For the convenience of the voters the county or city is divided into districts or precincts each containing a comparatively small number of voters, and for each district there is provided a polling place with the necessary number of booths, ballot boxes, and other election paraphernalia. The responsibility for preparing the ballots, giving notice of the election, and providing the necessary supplies is intrusted to certain designated officials. Sometimes the county clerk, sometimes the city clerk, and sometimes, as in the large cities, a board of election commissioners, performs these duties. _Election Officers._--At each polling place, on election day, there is a corps of election judges or inspectors, poll clerks, ballot clerks, and the like. Each party is allowed to have one or more watchers, and frequently there is a police official to maintain order at the polls. While the polls are open, electioneering within a certain number of feet of the election place is forbidden, and usually no person except the election officers, the watchers, and the person who is casting his ballot are allowed in the polling room. Every polling place is equipped with one or more voting booths which must be so constructed as to insure secrecy on the part of the voter while he is marking his ballot. The polls are opened at a designated hour, and before the balloting begins the ballot boxes must be opened and exhibited to show that they are empty, after which they are locked and the casting of the ballots begins. =Evolution of the Ballot.=--In the early days of our history, voting was by _viva voce_, that is, by living voice. Each voter as he appeared at the polling place was asked to state the names of the candidates for whom he desired to vote, and this he did in a distinct voice that could be heard by the bystanders as well as the election officials. The obvious objection to such a method was that it did not secure secrecy, and moreover it stimulated bribery because it was easy for a person who purchased a vote to see that the vote was delivered as paid for. The states soon began to experiment with the method of voting by ballot, and the advantages were so evident that in time this method was adopted in all of them, the last state to abandon the old method being Kentucky in 1891.