<P> Until the original Tasmanian Electoral Act 1856 was "re-discovered" recently, credit for the first implementation of the secret ballot often went to Victoria, where it was pioneered by the former mayor of Melbourne, William Nicholson, and simultaneously South Australia . Victoria enacted legislation for secret ballots on 19 March 1856, and South Australian Electoral Commissioner William Boothby generally gets credit for creating the system finally enacted into law in South Australia on 2 April of that same year (a fortnight later). The other Australian colonies followed: New South Wales (1858), Queensland (1859), and Western Australia (1877). New Zealand implemented secret voting in 1870 . </P> <P> State electoral laws, including the secret ballot, applied for the first election of the Australian Parliament in 1901, and the system has continued to be a feature of federal elections and referenda . The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 does not explicitly set out the secret ballot but a reading of sections 206, 207, 325, 327 of the Act would imply its assumption . Sections 323 and 226 (4) do however, apply the principle of a secret ballot to polling staff and would also support the assumption . </P> <P> Before 1890, partisan newspapers printed filled - out ballots which party workers distributed on election day so voters could drop them directly into the boxes . All of the states replaced these with secret ballots around 1890, popularly called "Australian ballots ." They were printed by the local government and listed all the candidates impartially . </P> <P> The "Australian ballot" is defined as having four parts: </P>

When did the secret ballot start in america