Word.ws English Dictionary

stuff the ballot box

stuff the ballot box verb: to commit fraud in an election by depositing extra or otherwise illegitimate ballots into the container holding the ballots of voters, in an attempt to secure victory for a particular candidate or outcome.

Verb

stuff the ballot box (third-person singular simple present stuffs the ballot box, present participle stuffing the ballot box, simple past and past participle stuffed the ballot box)

  1. (idiomatic) To commit fraud in an election by depositing extra or otherwise illegitimate ballots into the container holding the ballots of voters, in an attempt to secure victory for a particular candidate or outcome.
    • Two fruitless ballots were taken, when the chairman of the board of tellers, stepping to the platform, said: "I find that attempts have been made to stuff the ballot-box."1888 May 24, “Electing the Bishops”, in Baltimore American, retrieved 05 Apr 2013, page 4
    • Their simplest and most effective scheme is to create a disturbance during which they can stuff the ballot box as they tried to last night.1906 September 28, “Decent Democracy Downs Dorneyism”, in The News-Democrat, Rhode Island, USA, retrieved 05 Apr 2013, page 3

Forms of stuff the ballot box

third-person singular presentstuffs the ballot box
present participlestuffing the ballot box
past participlestuffed the ballot box
paststuffed the ballot box

Questions about stuff the ballot box

What does stuff the ballot box mean?
Stuff the ballot box means to commit fraud in an election by depositing extra or otherwise illegitimate ballots into the container holding the ballots of voters, in an attempt to secure victory for a particular candidate or outcome.
What part of speech is stuff the ballot box?
Stuff the ballot box is a verb.
What is the past tense of stuff the ballot box?
The past tense of stuff the ballot box is stuffed the ballot box.

Words near stuff the ballot box in the dictionary

  1. stuff it
  2. stuff one's face
  3. stuff out
  4. stuff sack
  5. stuff sacks
  6. stuff the ballot box
  7. stuff up
  8. stuff you
  9. stuff-a-roni
  10. stuff-up
  11. stuff-ups

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stuff the ballot box (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-stuff the ballot box.ogg.

Cite this entry: “stuff the ballot box.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stuff_the_ballot_box. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.