Picture a closed box with one narrow slit cut in the lid. Papers go in through the slit, one at a time, and nothing comes back out until the counting starts in front of everyone. That small slit is the whole idea: it lets a vote be private and still be counted, because your paper disappears among all the others. The box is so tied to the act of voting that English can lift it out of the room and use it for the practice itself — so the same two words can be a thing you carry, or the way a whole country answers a question.
可以想成一個封起來的箱子，蓋子上只切了一道窄縫。紙從那道縫一張一張進去，在大家面前開箱清點之前，什麼都拿不出來。那道小縫就是整個重點：它讓一張票既保密又算得到，因為你的票一進去就混在大家的票裡。這個箱子和「投票」這個動作綁得太緊，緊到英文可以把它從現場抽出來，拿去指投票這整套做法。所以同樣兩個字，可以是一個搬得動的箱子，也可以是一個群體回答問題的方式。