Suffragia or Suffragium, a vote. At Athens the voting in the popular assemblies and the courts of justice was either by show of hands or by ballot, as is explained under Cheirotonia and Psephus. It is commonly supposed that at Rome the people were always polled in the comitia by word of mouth, till the passing of the Leges Tabellariae about the middle of the second century before Christ, when the ballot by means of tabellae was introduced.
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