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second ballot

British

noun

an electoral procedure in which if no candidate emerges as a clear winner in a first ballot, candidates at the bottom of the poll are eliminated and another ballot is held among the remaining candidates

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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second ballot

On the second ballot, Lincoln jumped to 181, only 3.5 behind Seward.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026

Thune, who’s served as McConnell’s No. 2 since 2019, beat out Texas Sen. John Cornyn on a second ballot, 29 to 24.

From Slate ● Nov. 13, 2024

The second ballot will list parties - and independents - in provinces vying for a further 200 parliamentary seats.

From BBC ● May 28, 2024

This is the direction I want the coalition to go — that's the second ballot.

From Salon ● Mar. 9, 2024

On the seventeenth ballot Buchanan was unanimously nominated for President, and on the second ballot John C. Breckenridge was nominated for Vice President.

From Political Recollections 1840 to 1872 by George W. Julian

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023