page_title: Electoral symbol
hierarchical_section_title: Electoral symbol
caption_attribution_description: English: Voting in Israel – Josef Tal is helped by his granddaughter (2003 polls). Photographed in a Jerusalem school.
context_page_description: An electoral symbol is a standardised symbol allocated to a political party. Symbols are used by parties in their campaigning, and printed on ballot papers where a voter must make a mark to vote for the associated party. Their purpose is to facilitate voting by illiterate people, who cannot read parties' names on ballot papers. Examples include an elephant's head and three lotus flowers, a hand and a sailboat. In Brazil, parties are allocated two-digit numbers, easily recognized by the illiterate, instead.
  In Israel parties are identified by a symbol composed of one, two, three or four Hebrew letters; this facilitates voters whose knowledge of Hebrew or Arabic is limited.
context_section_description: An electoral symbol is a standardised symbol allocated to a political party. Symbols are used by parties in their campaigning, and printed on ballot papers where a voter must make a mark to vote for the associated party. Their purpose is to facilitate voting by illiterate people, who cannot read parties' names on ballot papers. Examples include an elephant's head and three lotus flowers (Cambodian Democratic Party), a hand (Indian National Congress) and a sailboat (Bangladesh Awami League). In Brazil, parties are allocated two-digit numbers, easily recognized by the illiterate, instead. 
  In Israel parties are identified by a symbol composed of one, two, three or four Hebrew letters; this facilitates voters whose knowledge of Hebrew or Arabic (the two official languages) is limited.
caption: Poster at a polling station in Israel, with party symbols explained in Arabic and Russian.
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