POLL - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

POLLAuthored

The Law Mind • 1092 words

Definition

POLL carries several distinct legal meanings, rooted in the Latin caput (head) and historically applied to individuals counted one by one.

A head; an individual person. The base meaning from which most legal uses of the term derive. Polls, in the plural, refers to individual persons collectively — hence "poll tax" as a tax levied per head, and "going to the polls" as the act of individual electors presenting themselves to vote.

The place where votes are cast and counted, and by extension the act or process of voting itself. An election site is "the polls"; the act of recording votes is "polling." To "poll" voters is to canvas or enumerate them individually.

To poll a jury. A procedural act in which each juror is individually asked, in open court, to declare their verdict separately. Either party may demand a poll of the jury, typically at any point after a verdict is announced but before it is formally recorded. The purpose is to confirm that each juror genuinely assents to the verdict as returned.

Cut or shaved smooth; even-edged. An older descriptive meaning applied to documents — specifically, a deed whose edges were cut straight, as opposed to indented. This is the origin of the term "deed poll." The physical act of cutting or polling distinguished document types in an era before standardized record-keeping.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A pet name for a parrot; a diminutive of the given name Mary.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A parrot, familiarly so called.

The common meaning of "poll" as a parrot's name is entirely unrelated to the legal term. Researchers encountering "poll" in legal sources should not be misled by this association. The legal senses all derive from the head-counting meaning, not from the personal name.

Common Confusion

POLL and DEED POLL are sometimes treated as if "poll" in that phrase is a redundant modifier. In fact, "deed poll" specifically means a deed executed by one party only, whose edges were physically cut (polled) in a straight line — as opposed to an indenture, whose edges were notched or indented to match a counterpart copy. The term survives in modern usage (particularly in British law for formal name changes) largely stripped of its original physical meaning.

POLL TAX is sometimes conflated with general property or income taxes. It is technically distinct: a tax imposed uniformly per person regardless of wealth or property. In American constitutional history the term carries additional weight given the Twenty-Fourth Amendment's prohibition on poll taxes in federal elections and subsequent voting rights litigation.

Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

Poll tax: A fixed tax assessed on each person (per capita), rather than on property or income.

Deed poll: A deed executed by one party only, historically distinguished by its straight-cut edges. Contrasted with an indenture.

Challenge to the polls: In jury selection, a challenge directed at individual prospective jurors, as opposed to a challenge to the array (the jury panel as a whole). See CHALLENGE.

Polling the jury: The procedural demand that each juror individually affirm their verdict before it is recorded.

Why It Matters in Research

The multi-layered meanings of POLL are a navigational hazard in historical legal sources. A researcher encountering "poll" must determine from context whether the source is discussing taxation, elections, jury procedure, or deed form — and these contexts appear in entirely different bodies of law.

In jury procedure, polling the jury appears in early American case law as a right of uncertain scope. Historical sources differ on whether it is an absolute right of either party or a matter of judicial discretion. Researchers examining nineteenth-century state practice should check local rules; the sources themselves flag disagreement on this point.

In the election law context, the vocabulary of "the polls" saturates nineteenth-century statutory and constitutional material. Much of this material predates modern voter registration frameworks, and "polls" referred to the physical site and the act of enumeration simultaneously — a conflation that can confuse analysis of historical voting procedures.

The deed poll usage is largely archaic in American practice but remains live in English law, particularly for formal change-of-name instruments. Researchers working in Anglo-American comparative sources or early colonial materials will encounter it with some frequency. The physical rationale — straight-cut versus indented edges — is explained by Blackstone and picked up by Burrill; understanding it clarifies why the document type had evidentiary significance.

Poll tax research requires careful attention to constitutional chronology. The Twenty-Fourth Amendment (1964) bars poll taxes in federal elections; Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966) extended that prohibition to state elections under the Equal Protection Clause. Historical sources predate both developments and treat poll taxes as unremarkable revenue instruments.

Historical Dictionary Support

All four source dictionaries agree on the core meaning: poll as a head, a person, the root of poll tax and the polls as election sites. Burrill provides the most linguistically careful treatment, tracing the Latin caput and the Law French polle, and distinguishing the two main senses (person vs. cut-even) explicitly.

Bouvier is most useful on the jury-polling procedure and forthrightly acknowledges jurisdictional disagreement — noting that in some states polling the jury is a right of either party, in others a matter of judicial discretion. This is a rare instance of a historical dictionary doing honest jurisdictional work, and it remains useful as a starting point for comparative research.

Anderson adds the phrase "challenge to the polls," which connects poll to the jury selection vocabulary and signals that the term operates across multiple procedural contexts simultaneously.

None of the historical dictionaries address the constitutional dimensions of poll taxes, which developed primarily in the twentieth century. Researchers should treat the historical dictionary definitions of poll tax as descriptively accurate for their era but constitutionally incomplete.

Jurisdictional Note

Polling the jury practice varies by jurisdiction. Some states treat it as an absolute right of either party upon request; others leave it to judicial discretion. Federal practice is governed by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 31(d), which expressly permits polling. Researchers examining state practice should not assume federal standards apply.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Elections and Voting Rights; Jury Trial Procedure; Taxation — Historical Frameworks; Deeds and Conveyancing.

POLLmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1883

The head; a catalogue or list of persons; a register of heads. Also, the act of giving, receiving and registering votes at an election. See CHALLENGE, & 2; DEED, 2; POLL TAX; POLLING THE JURY. POLLARDS, or POLLENGERS. - Trees which have been lopped, distinguished from timber trees. Plowd. 649. POLL-EVIL, (defined). Oliph. Hors. 49. POLLICITATION.-In the civil law, a promise before it is accepted.

POLLmain

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

1, n. A head; a person. Polls. Individual persons; also, the place where electors are counted, and the votes by which they are counted. Whence polling by either husband or wife to each other, during the place. Challenge to the polls. A challenge to single persons as jurors. See CHALLENGE, 3. Deed-poll. A deed made by one party only, the edges of the instrument being polled" or shaven even.7 See further DEED, 2. " Poll-tax. A tax upon individual persons. See TAX, 2. 2, υ. Το enter the names of persons on a list or in a registry, as, for purposes of taxation, or voting. Poll a jury. To call the names of the persons who compose a jury and require each man to declare his verdict before it is recorded. In most of the States it is the absolute right of an accused person to poll the jury. The right did not exist at common law; it seems to have grown up in practice. Twenty Per Cent. Cases, 13 Wall. 575 (1871), Clifford, J. 2 People v. Morgan, 90 111. 563 (1878). • Chesterfield v. Janssen, 2 Ves. Sr. *156 (1750), Hardwicke, Ld. Ch. * Mississippi v. Johnson, 4 Wall. 475 (1866). O. Dut. polle, a head or pate. See 3 Bl. Com. 361; 4 id. 352. 'See 2 Bl. Com. 206; 2 Hill, 550. • Doyle v. United States, 11 Biss. 106 (1881); 60 Md. existence of the marriage relation, deemed confidential at common law. Sec. 2. That in any prosecution for bigamy, polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation, under any statute of the United States, whether before a United States commissioner, justice, judge, a grand jury, or any court, an attachment for any witness may be issued by the court, judge, or commissioner, without a previous subpœna, compelling the immediate attendance of such witness, when it shall appear by oath or affirmation, to the commissioner, justice, judge, or court, as the case may be, that there is reasonable ground to believe that such witness will unlawfully fail to obey a subpœna issued and served in the usual course in such cases; and in such case the usual witness-fee shall be paid to such witnesses so attached: Provided, That the person so attached may at any time secure his or her discharge from custody by executing a recognizance with sufficient surety, conditioned for the appearance of such person at the proper time, as a witness in the cause or proceeding wherein the attachment may be issued. 402; 10 F. R. 274, cases; South. Law J. & R., Dec. 1879: 1 Crim. Law Mag. 170-77, cases. 1 Hindrey v. Williams, 9 Col. 376-77 (1886), cases. 2Gk. polygami'a, marrying many wives: poly-many; gam'os, marriage. Polyandry: polys', many; aner, andros', man, male, husband. Monandry: mónos, one. $1 Bish. Mar. & Div. § 296. See 4 Bl. Com. 164; 4 Steph. Com. 278, note; R. S. § 5352. The act was received by the President, February 19, 1887, not having been returned by him to the House in which it originated within the time prescribed by the Constitution, it became a law without his approval.

POLLmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

A head. Hence poll-tax is the name of a tax imposed upon the people at so much a head. To poll a jury is to require that each juror shall himself declare what is his ver- dict. This may be done, at the instance of either party, at any time before the verdict is recorded, according to the practice in some states. See 18 Johns. 188; 9 111. 336. In some states it lies in the discretion of the judge; 1 M'Cord 24, 525; 22 Ga. 431. A defendant has a right to a poll of the jury to ascertain whether each member concurs in the verdict, but the exact words used by the juror in answering are imma- terial, if they indicate clearly the assent of the individual mind to the verdict; 153 Pa. 535. Where a court directs a verdict, a party is not entitled to have the jury polled; 87 Mich. 13. In Conveyancing. A deed-poll, or single deed, is one made by a single party, whose edges are polled, or shaved even, in distinction from an indenture, whose sides are indented, and which is executed by more than one party. 2 Bla. Com. 296. See DEED POLL.

POLLn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

A parrot; -- familiarly so called.

POLLn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

One who does not try for honors, but is content to take a degree merely; a passman. [Cambridge Univ., Eng.]

POLLn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

The head; the back part of the head. "All flaxen was his poll." Shak. A number or aggregate of heads; a list or register of heads or individuals. We are the greater poll, and in true fear They gave us our demands. Shak. The muster file, rotten and sound, upon my life, amounts not to fifteen thousand poll. Shak. Specifically, the register of the names of electors who may vote in an election. The casting or recording of the votes of registered electors; as, the close of the poll. All soldiers quartered in place are to remove . . . and not to return till one day after the poll is ended. Blackstone. The place where the votes are cast or recorded; as, to go to the polls. The broad end of a hammer; the but of an ax. The European chub. See Pollard, 3 (a). Poll book, a register of persons entitled to vote at an election.  -- Poll evil (Far.), an inflammatory swelling or abscess on a horse's head, confined beneath the great ligament of the neck.  -- Poll pick (Mining), a pole having a heavy spike on the end, forming a kind of crowbar.  -- Poll tax, a tax levied by the head, or poll; a capitation tax.

Pollname

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

A diminutive of the female given name Mary. | A common pet name for a parrot.

Pollnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

A disreputable woman.

Pollname

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

A surname transferred from the given name.

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