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

If workers vote against the agreement it would lead to a second ballot on whether to start a strike as early as Friday.

From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2024

Voters would cast ballots for candidates in their local district, as they do now, and then would cast a second ballot by party, in principle allowing smaller parties to flourish.

From Salon ● Mar. 9, 2024

The Convention then balloted for a candidate for Vice- President, and on the second ballot John C. Breckinridge was nominated.

From Perley's Reminiscences, v. 1-2 of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis by Benjamin Perley Poore

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