Also 6 Sc. votting; 7. Sc. woitting. [f. VOTE v. + -ING1.]
1. The action of giving a vote.
1575. in Maitl. Cl. Misc. (1840), I. 113. After lang ressonyng, with votting past thairin,… the last kirk hes ordanit [etc.].
1633. Sc. Acts, Chas. I. (1870), V. 95/2. To haue voitt in parliament … and in all vther lawfull meittings … quhair burghes royall … hes place of sitting and woitting.
1649. Ogilby, Æneis, XI. (1684), 36. Let him not threaten, and make Voting free.
1711. in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. V. 121. The Commons’s voteing of the throne of England vacant.
1765. Blackstone, Comm., I. 165. Some, who are suspected to have no will of their own, are excluded from voting.
1822. A. Ranken, Hist. France, IX. X. § 2. 259. The sittings and votings of the states should be together, or separately.
1861. Ld. Brougham, Brit. Const., App. III. 438. The voting was generally by the bean, or ballot in later times.
1885. Manch. Exam., 20 May, 4/7. The voting for the Chancellorship of Dublin University took place yesterday.
2. attrib., as voting-place; voting machine, a vote-recorder; voting-paper, a paper on which a vote is recorded; a ballot-paper.
1846. Keightley, Notes on Virgil, Bucol. I. 34. Saeptum was originally any inclosure, whence the Saepta or voting-place of the tribes at Rome.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Voting-paper, a balloting-paper; a proxy.
1861. Mill, Repr. Govt., 140. It is therefore provided that an elector may deliver a voting paper containing other names.
1880. McCarthy, Own Times, lii. IV. 109. The voting-paper principle was abandoned.
1900. Daily News, 28 Nov., 7/7. The adoption of the voting machine would do away with all the delay in counting and checking the ballot papers.
