concept
Ballotirovka (blackball voting)
blackball voting
also: баллотировка, черняк, белый шар
The ballotirovka procedure used in zemstvo and noble-assembly elections: electors dropped a white or black ball into an urn for each candidate, with a majority of black balls (черняки) defeating him; the practice made a candidate's exact tally of blacks and whites public, and is the mechanism by which Shilokhvostov is twice voted down.
Reading notes
- The House with the Mezzanine §120 voted out
"Прокатили" -- literally "rolled/carted [him] out" -- refers to the black-ball voting (ballotirovka) used in zemstvo elections; see in the corpus entity index for the mechanism. Balagin's defeat, reported secondhand by Belokurov, is the story's one piece of concrete evidence that Lida's practical work has, in fact, changed something.
- Not Fated! §20 black ball
Zemstvo and noble-assembly elections used the ballotirovka system: each elector dropped a white or black ball into an urn for a candidate, and a majority of black balls (chernyaki) meant defeat. Because every ball is counted and reported, a candidate learns exactly how many black balls he received, which lets Shilokhvostov needle Gadyukin for having voted against him despite his sympathetic words.