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Secret ballot

The secret ballot, also known as the Australian ballot, is a voting method in which a voter's identity in an election or a referendum is anonymous. This forestalls attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vote buying. This system is one means of achieving the goal of political privacy.

Secret ballots are used in conjunction with various voting systems. The most basic form of a secret ballot utilizes paper ballots upon which each voter marks their choices. Without revealing the votes, the voter folds the ballot paper in half and places it in a sealed box. This box is later emptied for counting. An aspect of secret voting is the provision of a voting booth to enable the voter to write on the ballot paper without others being able to see what is being written. Today, printed ballot papers are usually provided, with the names of the candidates or questions and respective check boxes. Provisions are made at the polling place for the voters to record their preferences in secret, and the ballots are designed to eliminate bias and prevent anyone from linking voters to the ballot.

A privacy problem arises with moves to improve the efficiency of voting by the introduction of postal voting and remote electronic voting. Some countries permit proxy voting, but some argue this is inconsistent with voting privacy. The popularity of the ballot selfie has challenged the secrecy of in-person voting.

In systems of direct democracy, such as the Swiss Landsgemeinde, voting is typically conducted publicly to ensure all citizens can observe the outcome.

Secret vs. public methods
The secret ballot became commonplace for individual citizens in liberal democracies worldwide by the late 20th century.

Votes taken by elected officials are typically public, so citizens can judge officials' and former officials' voting records in future elections. This may be done with a physical or electronic in-person system or through a roll call vote. Some faster legislative voting methods do not record who voted in which way, though witnesses in the legislative chambers may still notice a given legislator's vote. These include voice votes where the volume of shouting for or against is taken as a measure of numerical support and counting of raised hands. In some cases, a secret ballot is used to allow representatives to choose party leadership without fear of retaliation against those voting for losing candidates. The parliamentary tactics of forcing or avoiding a roll call vote can be used to discourage or encourage representatives to vote in a manner that is politically unpopular among constituents (for example, if a policy considered to be in the public interest is difficult to explain or unpopular but without a better alternative, or to hide pandering to a special interest) or to create or prevent fodder for political campaigns.

Public methods of citizen voting have included:
 * Oral proclamation, where votes are shouted out one at a time, usually at an assembly
 * Going to a particular area at an assembly, such as a town meeting or the Iowa caucus. This is the origin of the term poll for an election, originally meaning "top of the head", which is what was being counted at these assemblies.
 * Small balls or other objects, such as corn, pebbles, beans, bullets, colored marbles, or cards. This is the origin of the term ballot, originally meaning "small ball".
 * Raising of hands at an assembly
 * Cutting a brightly colored ballot (with the color corresponding to the party of choice) out of a newspaper and bringing it to a polling place
 * An open ballot system

Private methods of citizen voting have included:
 * Writing the name of the preferred candidate or outcome on a piece of paper and putting it in a container (which excludes illiterate voters)
 * Marking a government-printed ballot (which may exclude illiterate voters if they only include words and cannot get assistance, but some ballots include colors, symbols, or pictures to avoid this)

Ancient
In ancient Greece, secret ballots were used in several situations like ostracism and also to remain hidden from people seeking favors. In early 5th century BC the secrecy of ballot at ecclesia was not the primary concern, but more of a consequence of using ballots to count the votes accurately. Secret ballot was introduced into public life of Athens during second half of the fifth century.

In ancient Rome, the Tabellariae Leges (English: Ballot Laws) were four laws that implemented secret ballots for votes cast regarding each of the major elected assemblies of the Roman Republic. Three of the four laws were put in place in relatively quick succession, with one each in the years 139 BC, 137 BC, and 131 BC, applying respectively to the elections of magistrates, jury deliberations excepting charges of treason as well as the passage of laws. The final of the four laws was implemented more than two decades later in 107 BC and served solely to expand the law passed in 137 BC to require secret ballots for all jury deliberations, including treason.

Before these ballot laws, one was required to verbally provide their vote to an individual responsible for tallying the votes, effectively publicly making every voter's vote known. Mandating secret ballots had the effect of reducing the influence of the Roman aristocracy, who were capable of influencing elections through a combination of bribes and threats. Secret balloting helps assuage both of those concerns, as not only are one's peers unable to determine which way you voted, there is additionally no proof that could be produced that you did vote certain way, perhaps contravening directions.

France
Article 31 of the Constitution of the Year III of the Revolution (1795) states that "All elections are to be held by secret ballot". The same goes with the constitution of 1848: voters could hand-write the name of their preferred candidate on their ballot at home (the only condition was to write on white paper ) or receive one distributed on the street. The ballot was folded in order to prevent other people from reading its contents.

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte attempted to abolish the secret ballot for the 1851 plebiscite with an electoral decree requesting electors to write down "yes" or "no" (in French: "oui" or "non") under the eyes of everyone. But he faced strong opposition and finally changed his mind, allowing the secret ballot to occur.

According to the official website of the Assemblée nationale (the lower house of the French parliament), the voting booth was permanently adopted only in 1913.

United Kingdom

The demand for a secret ballot was one of the six points of Chartism. The British parliament of the time refused even to consider the Chartist demands. Still, Lord Macaulay, in an 1842 speech, while rejecting Chartism's six points as a whole, admitted that the secret ballot was one of the two points he could support.

The London School Board election of 1870 was Britain's first large-scale election by secret ballot.

After several failed attempts (several of them spearheaded by George Grote ), the secret ballot was eventually extended generally in the Ballot Act 1872, substantially reducing the cost of campaigning (as treating was no longer realistically possible) and was first used on 15 August 1872 to re-elect Hugh Childers as MP for Pontefract in a ministerial by-election following his appointment as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The original ballot box, sealed in wax with a licorice stamp, is held at Pontefract museum.

However, the UK uses numbered ballots to allow courts to intervene, under rare circumstances, to identify which candidate voters voted for.

Australia and New Zealand
In Australia, secret balloting appears to have been first implemented in Tasmania on 7 February 1856.

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 the former mayor of Melbourne William Nicholson pioneered it, 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 British colonies in Australia followed: New South Wales (1858), Queensland (1859), and Western Australia (1877).

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 referendums. The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 does not explicitly set out the secret ballot, but a reading of sections 206, 207, 325, and 327 of the Act would imply its assumption. Sections 323 and 226(4), however, apply the principle of a secret ballot to polling staff and would also support the assumption.

New Zealand implemented secret voting in 1870.

United States
Before the final years of the 19th century, partisan newspapers printed filled-out ballots, which party workers distributed on election day so voters could drop them directly into the boxes. Individual states moved to secret ballots soon after the presidential election of 1884, finishing with Kentucky in 1891 when it quit using an oral ballot.

Initially, however, a state's new ballot did not necessarily have all four components of an "Australian ballot":
 * 1) an official ballot being printed at public expense,
 * 2) on which the names of the nominated candidates of all parties and all proposals appear,
 * 3) being distributed only at the polling place and
 * 4) being marked in secret.

After ballots are cast and no longer identifiable to the voter, several states make the ballots and copies of them available to the public so the public can check counts and do other research with the anonymous ballots.

Louisville, Kentucky, was the first city in the United States to adopt the Australian ballot. It was drafted by Lewis Naphtali Dembitz, the uncle of and inspiration for future Supreme Court associate justice Louis Brandeis. Massachusetts adopted the first state-wide Australian ballot, written by reformer Richard Henry Dana III, in 1888. Consequently, it is also known as the "Massachusetts ballot". Seven states did not have government-printed ballots until the 20th century. Georgia started using them in 1922. When South Carolina followed suit in 1950, this completed the nationwide switch to Australian ballots. The 20th century also brought the first criminal prohibitions against buying votes in 1925.

While U.S. elections are now held primarily by secret ballot, there are a few exceptions:

 * North Carolina has a confidential but not secret ballot for early in-person voting (one-stop) and absentee-by-mail voting. General Statute § 163-227.5 states that the "ballot shall have a ballot number on it in accordance with G.S. 163-230.1(a2), or shall have an equivalent identifier to allow for retrievability." If a voter casts an absentee ballot or votes at a one-stop site (early voting) or absentee-by-mail, but it is discovered that the voter was ineligible (ex., died between casting ballot and election day), the ballot would be retrieved using a unique number written at the top of the ballot. Each county Election Director maintains a database with the names of each voter and associated retrievable ballot numbers.
 * Mail-in ballots do not meet the definition of Australian ballots, as they are distributed to voters' homes, and there is no guarantee that they are marked secretly. They may be used as absentee ballots, and Colorado, Oregon, and Washington conduct all elections by mail.
 * In some U.S. states, a political party nominating caucus requires an open ballot system. This includes, most notably, the leadoff Presidential nominating state of Iowa.
 * The Constitution of West Virginia specifies that voters may choose to cast an open ballot, though they must also have the option to cast a secret ballot.

International law
The right to hold elections by secret ballot is included in numerous treaties and international agreements that obligate their signatory states:
 * Article 21.3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, "The will of the people...shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which...shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures."
 * Article 23 of the American Convention on Human Rights (the Pact of San Jose, Costa Rica) grants to every citizen of member states of the Organization of American States the right and opportunity "to vote and to be elected in genuine periodic elections, which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and by secret ballot that guarantees the free expression of the will of the voters".
 * Paragraph 7.4 of the Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE obligates the member states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to "ensure that votes are cast by secret ballot or by equivalent free voting procedure, and that they are counted and reported honestly with the official results made public."
 * Article 5 of the Convention on the Standards of Democratic Elections, Electoral Rights and Freedoms in the Member States of the Commonwealth of Independent States obligates electoral bodies not to perform "any action violating the principle of voter's secret will expression."
 * Article 29 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires that all Contracting States protect "the right of persons with disabilities to vote by secret ballot in elections and public referendums"

Disabled people
Ballot design and polling place architecture often deny the disabled the possibility to cast a vote secretly. In many democracies disabled persons may vote by appointing another person who is allowed to join them in the voting booth and fill the ballot in their name. This does not assure secrecy of the ballot.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which entered into force in 2008, ensures a secret ballot for disabled voters. Article 29 of the Convention requires that all Contracting States protect "the right of the person with disabilities to vote by secret ballot in elections and public referendums". According to this provision, each Contracting State should provide voting equipment enabling disabled voters to vote independently and secretly. Some democracies, e.g. the United States, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Albania or India allow disabled voters to use electronic voting machines. In others, among them Azerbaijan, Canada, Ghana, the United Kingdom, and most African and Asian countries, visually impaired voters can use ballots in Braille or paper ballot templates. Article 29 also requires that Contracting States ensure "that voting procedures, facilities and materials are appropriate, accessible and easy to understand and use." In some democracies, e.g., the United Kingdom, Sweden and the United States, all the polling places already are fully accessible for disabled voters.

Secrecy exceptions
The United Kingdom secret ballot arrangements are sometimes criticized because linking a ballot paper to the voter who cast it is possible. Each ballot paper is individually numbered, and each elector has a number. When an elector is given a ballot paper, their number is noted down on the counterfoil of the ballot paper (which also carries the ballot paper number). This means, of course, that the secrecy of the ballot is not guaranteed if anyone can gain access to the counterfoils, which are locked away securely before the ballot boxes are opened at the count. Polling station officials colluding with election scrutineers may, therefore, determine how individual electors have voted.

This measure is thought to be justified as a security arrangement so that false ballot papers could be identified if there was an allegation of fraud. The process of matching ballot papers to voters is formally permissible only if an Election Court requires it; the Election Court has rarely made such an order since the secret ballot was introduced in 1872. One example was in a close local election contest in Richmond-upon-Thames in the late 1970s with three disputed ballots and a declared majority of two votes. Reportedly, prisoners in a UK prison were observed identifying voters' ballot votes on a list in 2008. The legal authority for this system is set out in the Parliamentary Elections Rules in Schedule 1 of the Representation of the People Act 1983.

Most states guarantee a secret ballot in the United States. But some states, including Indiana and North Carolina, require the ability to link some ballots to voters. This may, for example, be used with absentee voting to retain the ability to cancel a vote if the voter dies before election day. Sometimes the number on the ballot is printed on a perforated stub which is torn off and placed on a ring (like a shower curtain ring) before the ballot is cast into the ballot box. The stubs prove that an elector has voted and ensure they can only vote once, but the ballots are both secret and anonymous. At the end of voting day, the number of ballots inside the box should match the number of stubs on the ring, certifying that a registered elector cast every ballot and that none of them were lost or fabricated. Sometimes, the ballots themselves are numbered, making the vote trackable. In 2012 in Colorado, this procedure was ruled legal by Federal District Judge Christine Arguello, who determined that the U.S. Constitution does not grant a right to a secret ballot.

title: Secret ballot


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Dammam

Dammam (الدمّام ) is the capital of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. With a population of 1,532,300 as of 2022, Dammam is the kingdom's fourth-most populous city after Riyadh, Jeddah, and Mecca. Dammam constitutes the core of the Dammam metropolitan area, also known as the Greater Dammam area, which comprises the 'Triplet Cities' of Dammam, Dhahran, and Khobar. The region is closely linked to the city through social, economic, and cultural ties. the Dammam metropolitan area's population was 2,190,900.

The area that eventually became Dammam was settled by the Dawasir tribe around 1923, with permission of King Ibn Saud. The area was originally a fishing hamlet. It developed after the discovery of oil in the region, becoming a port city and an administrative center. Following the unification of Saudi Arabia, Dammam was made the capital of the newly formed Eastern Province.

Dammam is known for being a major administrative center for the Saudi oil industry, contributing to the export volume of the city's King Abdul Aziz Sea Port. With a cargo capacity of 2,038,787 TEUs as of 2022, the port is the second largest on the Persian Gulf, the third largest in Saudi Arabia, and eight largest in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region by cargo capacity.

The city and the rest of the Eastern Province are served by the King Fahd International Airport (KFIA), the largest airport in the world in terms of land area (approximately 780 km2), located about 31 km northwest of the city.

History
In 1866, the British attacked the fort of Dammam, which was under the control of the Emirate of Nejd. However, the attack failed.

Foundation (1923–1932)
Dammam was founded in 1923 by the Al Dawasir tribe that migrated from Bahrain after King Abdul Aziz allowed them to settle within the area. The tribe initially settled in Khobar, which was chosen for its proximity to the island of Bahrain as the tribe had hoped to go back there soon, but the British made it tough for them to maneuver. However, this gave the population of Khobar a lift, together with the formation of close ties with the larger city of Dammam.

Search for and discovery of oil (1932–1940s)
The planning of drilling wells in Dammam started in the spring of 1933 In Jeddah, when an oil concession agreement was signed by both the government of King Abd al-Aziz Al Saud and the representatives of The Standard Oil Company of California. A team of geologists was sent to Dammam. They finalized their plans for the wells in the beginning of June 1934. The work on the cellar for the first drilling rig in Dammam started approximately in January 1935, and ended on 19 February 1935. On 30 April 1935, the work began on drilling the firstst oil well in Dammam. When Dammam No. 1 didn't produce promising result, the work on it stopped on 4 January 1936, and Dammam No. 2 was drilled. Because of the promising results, there were plans to drill 5 more wells in the surrounding area of Dammam No. 2. Between June and early September 1936, the production of all of these drills were monitored closely, and most of them were disappointing. On December 7, 1936, the work started on Dammam No. 7. At the beginning the drilling didn't produce promising results. However, by 4 March 1938, Well No. 7 started producing a promising amount of oil. Saudi Aramco dug the famous Dammam Well No. 7, now designated the 'Prosperity Well,' that proved that the kingdom possessed an oversized supply of hydrocarbons.

Phase of rapid growth (1940s–1960s)
The discovery of recent oil fields around Dammam within the 1940s and 50s, which now account for 25% of the world's proven oil reserves, triggered a construction boom. The Al Bin Ali family, led by Sheikh Muhammad bin Nasir Al Bin Ali and his brothers, played a vital role in the development of town and also the region in various fields. Their company, Al Bin Ali and Brothers, was the primary Saudi construction company that took part within the expansion of Aramco. a number of their projects were the roads connecting Dammam to the northern oil wells, Highway 40, which connected Dammam to Riyadh; now referred to simply as the Dammam Road, and multiple expansions of the King Abdul Aziz Port. This led to experts and technicians from in and round the kingdom gathering to assist in the hunt for new oil fields and bring them on-stream. New pipelines, storage facilities, and jetties were also constructed to handle tankers.

Service industries sprouted up to support the industry and meet the needs and requirements of individuals living within the newly founded metropolitan area. As it has in other parts of the dominion, the Ministry of Health has established several modern hospitals and a network of healthcare facilities within the Dammam Area. These are supplemented by hospitals and clinics operated by the private sector.

Modern history (1960s–present)
Within a few decades, a locality that had several hundred inhabitants some sixty years ago now boasts a population of more than 1.5 million, and is still growing at a sustained high rate. The Dammam area, unlike other oil towns, has developed in multiple fields. Including hosting the administration of the Saudi oil industry, it is also a contemporary urban and industrial center. As this sector was growing within the early years, the Saudi government took steps to facilitate the evolution of the area. New roads and highways connected the booming city to other urban and industrial centers within the Kingdom. A railway line connected Dammam to the agricultural center of Kharj and on to Riyadh. Dhahran International Airport was established to further enhance the region's connection to other parts of the country and the world. Later, all commercial air transport facilities were transferred to the larger King Fahd International Airport, approximately 20 kilometers (12 miles) northwest of Dammam.

To encourage the expansion of non-oil industries, an industrial city was established within the open space between the three cities. Now home to 124 factories, the first Industrial City of Dammam was quickly surrounded by an urban mass. As a result, a second industrial city was established further far from the Dammam Area along Highway 615. Located on nearly 6,000 acre of land, the second Industrial City is home to 120 factories, with 160 others under construction. These plants manufacture a range of products that are marketed throughout the kingdom and also exported to other countries. Handling such exports and other imports is carried out by several shipping agents and commercial companies spread throughout the area.

The Dammam Area was designed from the outset on the principles of contemporary urban planning. Residential areas are clearly separated from commercial ones, the roads are broad and straight and buildings conform to a plan. One of the most significant factors contributing to the growth of the area was land reclamation; vast stretches of the shallow Persian Gulf were reclaimed. Water is provided by desalination plants that pump approximately seven million cubic feet of treated water every day. The supply of water underpins the urban and industrial growth of the Dammam Area, and provisions are being made for expanding existing desalination facilities to satisfy future growth. Dammam is a member city in the World Energy Cities Partnership (WECP).

Climate
Much like most of Saudi Arabia, Dammam features a hot desert climate (BWh) under the Köppen climate classification.

Winter temperatures range from mild to warm, but regularly drop to as low as around 1 °C at night. Rainfall in Dammam is generally sparse, and usually occurs in small amounts in the winter months of November, December and January; with periodic heavy thunderstorms. Hail generally falls during the colder months of December and January. Lighter showers occur during spring but are much rarer.

Summer temperatures are extremely hot, owing to the region's geographic location; and continually exceed 40 °C during daylight hours from March to October. Nights during summer generally feature temperatures higher than 35 °C and very high humidity, due to the urban heat island effect. Dust storms, known locally as shamals, are common in summer, and generally come from the north.

Extreme temperatures in the area have ranged from 50.8 C on 12 July 2024 to 0.8 C on 16 January 2008.

Environmental concerns
There is evidence that several building foundations and underground infrastructures in Dammam have been structurally weakened by a rising water table. Various sources, including precipitation, seawater intrusion and leakage from underground water networks and sewage pipes, were anecdotally suspected to be contributors to the rising shallow water-table problem. A recent study by T. M. Iwalewa and others has revealed that leakages from drinking-water supply and sewage-collection pipe networks are the major contributors to the rise in the water table in the city. The study showed that the rising shallow water-table problem represents a serious threat to the present and future development of the city.

Economy
Dammam is an industrialized zone in the eastern province. It is primarily due to the discovery of oil reserves. The city is location of the country's oil and gas industry. Dammam has been a major industrial city of the Middle East. The city contributes greatly to the national economy. The GDP per capita of Dammam is 87,570 SAR. With plethora of oil reserves and presence of necessary infrastructures such as international airport, seaport and cargo terminal contributes to the city's development.

Dammam is predominantly an industrial city, whose economy relies on the local petroleum industry. Saudi Aramco dominates much of oil sector in the city, as well as in Saudi Arabia. The company's headquarter is located in the nearby city of Dhahran, which also hosts the Residential Camp of Aramco. First oil well in Saudi Arabia was discovered in Dammam, by which, Saudi Arabia today leads in the global oil and gas industry. The well was later named as "Al-Khair". Jubail Industrial City, world's largest industrial city is located in nearby city of Jubail. Dammam is an import hub for agricultural products, beefs and dairy cattle.

3M is process of constructing a large manufacturing plant in Dammam. Hitachi Energy operates a High Voltage factory in Dammam. German multinational Siemens operates a large facility in Dammam to serve its regional customers. Dhahran Techno Valley is a tech hub for Aramco.

Air
Dammam is served by the King Fahd International Airport, the largest airport in the world in terms of land area. The passenger terminal is about 20 km to the northwest of the city and is connected by a six-lane highway. Being the main airport in the Eastern Province, Dammam is well connected by air with other cities in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe. The airport is a hub for Flynas. Dhahran International Airport was the old terminal and was the busiest Airport in Saudi Arabia.

Sea
The King Abdul Aziz Sea Port, located on the coast of the Persian Gulf, is the second largest and second busiest port in Saudi Arabia. It is also the largest port in the Persian Gulf. It was founded in the late 1940s. It has large equipment that allows it to receive various types of vessels. The most important equipments are 56 multi-purpose hoist, 8 container cranes, and 524 tanker containers. There are a number of berths for ships and fishing, as well as ship repair yard.

Road
Eastern Province cities like Abqaiq, Dhahran, Hofuf, Jubail (Dhahran–Jubail Highway), Khafji, Khobar (Dammam-Khobar Highway), Ras Tanura, Sihat and Qatif (Gulf Road), as well as many cities in other parts of the Kingdom are linked with Dammam by 8-lane highways. Dammam is connected to the Saudi capital, Riyadh and Jeddah on the west coast by Highway 40. It is also linked to Bahrain by the 28 km long King Fahd Causeway. Dammam also has highways to other Middle-Eastern countries such as Kuwait (Abu Hadriyah Highway), Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Intra-city public transport service in Dammam was recently launched. Inter-city bus services are operated from Dammam by the Saudi Arabian Public Transport Company (SAPTCO). Bus services connect Dammam with Khobar and other cities across the Middle East.

Rail
The headquarters of the Saudi Railways Organization (SRO), one of Saudi Arabia's two railway operators, is in Dammam. The passenger terminal in Dammam was the first built in Saudi Arabia and was built in 1981. It is considered to be a major terminal in the Saudi railway network.

Dammam will serve as an important junction on the proposed Gulf Railway connecting all six GCC member states. The city is located along the proposed main line connecting Kuwait with Oman via Saudi Arabia and the UAE. A branch line connecting Bahrain to Dammam are also part of the proposed project.

Two future railway projects connecting Dammam to Jeddah via Riyadh and Mecca in the western region and Dammam with Jubail have been proposed.

Rapid transit
An integrated public transport system for Dammam was approved by the Council of Ministers on 19 May 2014, and publicly announced by Mayor Fahad Al Jubair on 21 May 2014. The project includes 50 km of light rail, 110 km of bus rapid transit, and 350 km of feeder buses to link the outskirts of the city. The light rail system will have two lines. The first line will link Tarout Island with King Fahd Causeway via Qatif, Dammam and Dhahran. The second line will connect central Dammam to the King Fahd International Airport. Studies to finalize the alignment and location of the stations should have taken an estimated 18 months. The Dammam Metro is expected to open in 2021, but its current official status is unknown.

The bus rapid transit system was launched in 2023. It mainly covers Dammam, AlKhobar, Qatif, and Dhahran, over a distance of 453 kilometers, with 212 bus stops.

Entertainment
As part of the Saudi Government's Vision 2030 program that aims at diversifying the non-oil revenues in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) has planned to establish entertainment destinations in the Eastern Province. This would include the establishment of amusement parks and the building of several entertainment facilities such as theatres. The King Salman Energy Park (SPARK) is planned to be established by ARAMCO between Dammam and Ahsa. covering an area of 50 km2.

The beaches overlooking the Persian Gulf have always been a main destination for locals, especially for fishermen.

Sports
Football is the national sport of Saudi Arabia and the most popular sport in Dammam. The Prince Mohammed bin Fahd Stadium is the city's primary stadium and football venue. It serves as the home ground for Saudi Professional League's Ettifaq FC and Saudi First Division's Al-Nahda Club. More traditional sports such as camel racing, falconry, basketball and equestrianism are still practiced. Cricket is popular among the South Asian expatriates living in the city. Shopping

Dammam is home to many local markets and malls. Among the local markets are "Souq Al hob" and "Souq Al Dammam". Both of these markets sell commodities that are local to the region and regular commodities as well. Some of the malls in Dammam are "Al othaim Mall", and "Marina Mall", they both provide the customers access to brands that are known around the world.

Many expats choose to congregate in Dammam's shopping and entertainment hubs like LuLu, which at the moment also boasts a multiplex showing films in both local and foreign languages.

All across Dammam, there are shopping mall chains as Tamimi Markets, Nesto Chains, The Grand Mall Chains, and Panda Chains.

Culture
The King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, also known as Ithra, incorporates a museum, children museum, library, cinema, theater, and exhibition halls. It was designed by the Norwegian architectural firm Snøhetta. The center has been listed in Time magazine as one of the world's top 100 places to visit and attracted one million visitors in 2019.

Demographics
In 1950, Dammam had a population of 22,000. By 2000, the population soared to 759,000 people. Dammam was the world's tenth fastest growing city during that 50-year period. According to a report released by the Central Department of Statistics and Information, the population of Dammam was 903,000 as of December 2010, making it the sixth most populous city in Saudi Arabia and the most populous in the Eastern Province.

According to statistics released by the Ministry of Economy and Planning, in 2011, home ownership among Saudi citizens in Dammam was 42.4%.

Healthcare
The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health oversees the medical facilities across the kingdom. Hospitals and polyclinics located in the urban core of Dammam tend to be concentrated around one central building. Some of the public/government-funded hospitals operated directly by the MoH include the Dammam Medical Complex (also known as the Dammam Central Hospital), the King Fahd Specialist Hospital (KFSH) which shares its compound the Maternity and Children's Hospital (MCH), and the Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal Hospital which shares its compound with the Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University. Two hospitals targeting members of the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces are the Security Forces Hospital and the King Fahd Military Medical Complex.

In addition to these public hospitals and polyclinics, several private hospitals and medical centers are also present within Dammam. The most well-known of these is the AGH Dammam or Al Mana Group of Hospitals, Dammam which is part of the Al Mana Group of Hospitals run by Ebrahim Al Mana and Bros., which claims to be the largest medical company & healthcare provider in the Eastern Province. Other private hospitals in and around the city include the Arrawdha Hospital, Al Mouwasat Hospital, the Dammam Private Medical Complex (Formerly Dammam Medical Dispensary), Gama Hospital (formerly Astoon Hospital), among others. One of the largest medical complexes in the kingdom, the Dr. Sulaiman Al Habib Complex is located between Dammam and Khobar off Highway 605.

Education
Dammam has a large number of schools, universities and colleges. Schools teaching various syllabus and in several different languages of instruction can be found. The largest school in Saudi Arabia and in the MENA, International Indian School Dammam is situated here

Primary and secondary education
Dammam has a large number of both Saudi and international schools that are either public or private schools. Most of the Saudi schools are public and run by the government, while most of the international schools are private. Most of the international schools are Indian schools affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education, although a few schools teaching American, British, Pakistani, Filipino, Bangladeshi curricula, along with schools teaching curricula of other nations also exist.

Higher education and research
Some of the well-known universities in the region include the Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University (formerly known as the University of Dammam) located off Highway 610, the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (also known as KFUPM and UPM) which shares its compound with Saudi Aramco and the Prince Mohammad bin Fahd University which is located in south-west Khobar.

Dammam Governorate
The Dammam Governorate (محافظة الدمّام ) is one of the 12 governorates of the Eastern Province. The governorate includes parts of other cities in the Dammam metropolitan area, most notably the entirety of Dhahran, as the city is not part of its own governorate. The majority of its area besides the cities of Dammam and Dhahran is uninhabited desert, with the two major exceptions being the King Fahd International Airport and the Second Industrial City of Dammam.

The governorate is bounded by the Persian Gulf to the northeast and the Khobar Governorate to the southeast. To its south lies Half Moon Bay, while its west is covered by the comparatively larger governorates of Jubail in the northwest and Buqayq in southwest. Its northern reaches are bordered by the smaller Qatif Governorate to the northwest and the Tarout Bay to the northeast.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Dammam


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Don Boudria

Don Boudria (born August 30, 1949) is a former Canadian politician and current senior associate at Sandstone Group, an Ottawa-based executive advisory firm. He served in the House of Commons of Canada from 1984 to 2006 as a member of the Liberal Party of Canada, and was a cabinet minister in the government of Jean Chrétien.

Municipal and provincial politics
Boudria was born in Hull, Quebec, and raised in Sarsfield, Ontario. Similarly, he was educated in the area and worked as a public servant before entering political life. A Franco-Ontarian, he was elected as councillor for Cumberland Township in 1976, and remained a council member until his election to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in the 1981 provincial election. Boudria defeated Progressive Conservative incumbent Joseph Albert Bélanger by 5,172 votes in Prescott and Russell, and served in the legislature for three years as a member the Ontario Liberal Party, which was then the official opposition to the Progressive Conservative government, led by William Davis.

Entry into federal politics
He left provincial politics to run for the House of Commons in the 1984 federal election. Boudria won a convincing victory in Ontario's easternmost riding, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, even as his party suffered a landslide defeat against Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives. Joining the opposition benches of the Commons in 1984, he became a member of the Liberal Rat Pack with Brian Tobin, Sheila Copps and John Nunziata. This group of young Liberals made it their business to challenge the Tories at every possible chance. In his first federal term, Boudria successfully sponsored a motion to erect a statue of Canada's only Nobel Peace Prize-winning prime minister, the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson.

Re-election and cabinet positions
Boudria was re-elected without difficulty in 1988, 1993, 1997 and 2000. Like the other Rat Pack members, he rose rapidly in the Liberal ranks. From 1991 to 1993, he served as Deputy Liberal House Leader. After the Liberals won a huge majority in 1993, Boudria returned temporarily to the back benches. He was appointed Chief Government Whip on September 15, 1994. He held this position until October 4, 1996, when he was named to Cabinet as Minister for International Cooperation and Minister responsible for La Francophonie.

Boudria was named Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons after the 1997 election, managing a complex legislative agenda when, for the first time in Canadian history, five parties (Liberals, Reform, Bloc Québécois, New Democrats and Progressive Conservatives, in descending order of seat count) won enough seats to qualify for official party status. In 1998, he sponsored legislation to control third-party advertising during election campaigns strictly. This law was challenged all the way to the Supreme Court and sustained, remaining in place to this day. One of the main challengers of this legislation was the National Citizens Coalition.

He retained this position until January 14, 2002, when he was again given a full portfolio as Minister of Public Works and Government Services. He was reappointed as Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons on May 26, 2002, when Prime Minister Jean Chrétien retired.

Chrétien loyalist
Boudria was known within the Liberal caucus as a leading Chrétien loyalist. During Question Period, he frequently handed Chrétien notes from a white binder. Due to this practice, Reform Party deputy leader Deb Grey asked in 2000 if Chrétien could answer a question "without any help from Binder Boy." The nickname stuck.

Boudria was not reappointed to cabinet in December 2003 when Paul Martin replaced Chrétien as Liberal leader and prime minister. However, he became chair of the Official Languages Committee, and after the 2004 federal election, became chair of the Procedure and House Affairs Committee. Subsequently, he was elected chair of the Standing Committee on Official Languages (3rd session of the 37th parliament) and the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (1st session of the 38th parliament).

On May 6, 2005, Boudria announced he would not run in the next election.

Life after government
Boudria's memoir, Busboy: From Kitchen to Cabinet, was published in late 2005. In 2006, he assisted Stéphane Dion's campaign for the leadership of the Liberal Party. Boudria joined Ottawa-based public relations agency Hill & Knowlton Canada as a senior associate in May 2006, and was promoted to senior counsellor in March 2007. He continued with Hill & Knowlton Canada up until June of 2023, before beginning a new professional journey as senior associate at Sandstone Group.

Don's son, Dan Boudria, was elected to the Conseil des écoles catholiques de langue française du Centre-Est in the 2006 municipal election. In early 2007, the Liberal Party of Canada Association of Glengarry—Prescott—Russell selected the younger Boudria as candidate in the 40th federal election. He lost to incumbent Conservative MP Pierre Lemieux.

Accolades
Boudria has been decorated on three separate occasions by the International Assembly of French-speaking Parliamentarians with the l’Ordre de la Pleiade award, where he served as the founding president of the Ontario section, for his advocacy of international cooperation and the rights of French-speaking peoples. He was also a recipient of the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians' Distinguished Service Award in 2018.

The University of Ottawa has created an annual scholarship under his name to nurture Canadian history scholars. The city of Ottawa has also established a Don Boudria Park in Orleans to recognize his many years of service to the region and to Canadians at large. It was opened in July 2020 and officially inaugurated by Jim Watson, the Mayor of Ottawa, in August 2021.

Electoral record
Note: Conservative vote is compared to the total of the Canadian Alliance vote and Progressive Conservative vote in 2000 election.

Note: Canadian Alliance vote is compared to the Reform vote in 1997 election.

title: Don Boudria


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Pasquale Villari

Pasquale Villari (3 October 1827 – 11 December 1917) was an Italian historian and politician.

Early life and publications
Villari was born in Naples and took part in the risings of 1848 there against the Bourbons and subsequently fled to Florence. There he devoted himself to teaching and historical research in the public libraries with the object of collecting new materials on Girolamo Savonarola. He published the fruits of his research in the Archivio Storico Italiano in 1856, and in 1859 he published the first volume of his Storia di Girolamo Savonarola e de' suoi tempi, in consequence of which he was appointed professor of history at Pisa. A second volume appeared in 1861, and the work, which soon came to be recognized as an Italian classic, was translated into various foreign languages.

It was followed by a work of even greater critical value, Niccolò Machiavelli e i suoi tempi (1877–82). In the meanwhile Villari had left Pisa and was transferred to the chair of philosophy of history at the Institute of Studii Superiori in Florence, and he was also appointed a member of the council of education (1862). He served as a juror at the international exhibition of that year in London, and contributed an important monograph on education in England and Scotland.

Enters politics
In 1869 he was appointed under-secretary of state for education, and shortly afterwards was elected member of parliament, a position which he held for several years. In 1884 he was appointed senator, and became vice-president of the senate in 1887. In 1891-1892 he was minister of education in the Marchese di Rudini's first cabinet, and introduced valuable reforms into the curriculum of the schools. In 1893-1894 he collected a number of essays on Florentine history, originally published in the Nuova Antologia, under the title of I primi due secoli della storia di Firenze, and in 1901 he produced Le Invasioni Barbariche in Italia, a popular account in one volume of the events following the dissolution of the Roman empire.

Other works
Among his other literary works may be mentioned: Saggi Critici (1868); Arte, Storia, e Filosofia (Florence, 1884); Scritti varii (Bologna, 1894); another volume of Saggi Critici (Bologna, 1896); and a volume of Discussioni critiche e discorsi (Bologna, 1905), containing his speeches as president of the Dante Alighieri Society. His most important political and social essays are collected in his Lettere Meridionali ed altri scritti sulla questione sociale in Italia (Turin, 1885), and Scritti sulla questione sociale in Italia (Florence, 1902). The Lettere Meridionali (originally published in the newspaper L'Opinione in 1875) produced a deep impression, as they were the first exposure of the real conditions of southern Italy. Many of his works were translated into English by his wife, Linda White Mazini Villari, with whom he had Luigi Villari.

Personal life
His stepdaughter, Costanza, married the artist William Stokes Hulton. They had two daughters, Gioconda Mary Hulton and Edith Teresa Hulton. Edith Teresa Hulton became the 8th Lady Berwick of Attingham Park in Shropshire upon her marriage to Thomas Henry Noel-Hill, 8th Lord Berwick, in 1919.

Family
His younger brother Emilio Villari became a physicist.

title: Pasquale Villari


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Talk:Political privacy

For what it's worth, I think Australian ballot should be an article in its own right, but admit I don't feel at all knowledgable enough to write it at present. There is a history of its development and inception that ought to be preserved, and which is really separate from the much larger issue of political privacy (though of course related). Maybe the redirect stays for now, but then it will be much less likely that someone stumbles on the fact that we have no article and choose to write it (redirs show up blue). Jwrosenzweig 00:08, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * Done! Australian ballot - Gaz 09:16, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Essay templates
The sections marked with Cleanup-essay are, IMAO, far too pository and written in a manner of original research. They sound like they're arguing a point, or something, and aren't very well sourced. 68.39.174.238 (talk) 02:42, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

title: Talk:Political privacy


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All Saints (TV series)

All Saints is an Australian medical drama television series that first screened on the Seven Network on 24 February 1998. Set in the fictional All Saints Western General Hospital, it focused on the staff of Ward 17 until its closure in 2004, which is when the focus changed and began following the staff of the Emergency Department. The show was produced by John Holmes alongside Jo Porter, MaryAnne Carroll and Di Drew. The final episode aired on 27 October 2009, completing its record-breaking 12-year run.

Plot
All Saints follows the lives of the staff at All Saints Western General Hospital. Until its closure in 2004 (season 7), the show primarily focused on the staff in Ward 17. Known as the "garbage ward" as it took all the overflow from the other wards, Ward 17 was run by compassionate nun, Sister Terri Sullivan (Georgie Parker). Her staff included her nurses Connor Costello (Jeremy Cumpston), Von Ryan (Judith McGrath), Bronwyn Craig (Libby Tanner), Jared Levine (Ben Tari) and Stephanie Markham (Kirrily White) and her ward clerk Jaz Hillerman (Sam Healy). Luke Forlano (Martin Lynes) and Peter Morrison (Andrew McKaige) were doctors who frequently worked with Terri and her staff. Ben Markham (Brian Vriends) was an ambulance officer who worked closely with Luke, despite their rivalry. Bronwyn left Ward 17 and became an ambulance officer at the end of 1998 but returned to the ward full-time at the end of season 3.

Peter and Jaz were written out early on in the second season which introduced Doctor Mitch Stevens (Erik Thomson, an old boyfriend of Terri's with whom she had unfinished business. More of the original cast left: Stephanie was killed in a car accident in Season 3 and Connor left in Season 4. The beginning of the fourth season gave Ben a new ambulance partner, Scott Zinenko (Conrad Coleby), and the concluding episodes introduced two new nurses, Paula Morgan (Jenni Baird) and Nelson Curtis (Paul Tassone). Long-serving doctor Charlotte Beaumont (Tammy Macintosh) made her debut in the fifth season.

Production
After the death of Dr. Mitch Stevens (Erik Thomson) and the departure of Bron Craig (Libby Tanner) in 2003, the producers decided to do something in response to considerable drop in ratings and to prolong the life of the series.

In February 2004, John Holmes told The Age journalist Debi Enker that All Saints would be undergoing "major surgery" when the focus shifted from Ward 17 to the Emergency Department. He also stated that while four familiar faces will be leaving, new characters will be introduced to fill the void. Holmes recalled a statement that he made in May 2003 in which he said, "we [myself and Seven script executive Bevan Lee] were seeing the scripts and watching episodes and we were feeling that there was a little bit of a sameness in it. We started to think, 'Don't know about this. Sixth year. Maybe we've had a few too many people through the door of Ward 17 on a trolley and had the 'Hi, I'm Von, I'm your nurse. Room Three, thanks Sterlo.'" After tossing up between cancelling the show and using it as the foundation of a spin-off series, Holmes and Lee decided to rejuvenate the show by changing the setting. Ward 17 would then close and the show would be relocated to the Emergency Department.

As a result of the shift, several cast members decided to leave the show. Paula Morgan (Jenni Baird), Luke Forlano (Martin Lynes), Alex Kearns (Fletcher Humphrys) and Sterling McCormack (Henry Nixon) were all written out of the show. Former Always Greener star John Howard signed a three-year deal and was added to the cast as the cranky head of Emergency, Dr. Frank Campion. Other new faces included Wil Traval as Dr. Jack Quade, Mark Priestley and Natalie Saleeba as nurses Dan Goldman and Jessica Singleton and Alexandra Davies as ambulance officer Cate McMasters.

Season eight saw one of the biggest changes yet as Terri Sullivan (Georgie Parker), who until then had been the main character, was written out halfway through the year, leaving Von Ryan (Judith McGrath) as the last remaining original character and resulting in John Howard being moved into top billing. The last two episodes of the season introduced Chris Vance as doctor Sean Everleigh.

The ninth season would see another large cast turnover. Nelson and Jessica both left, while arriving were Allison Cratchley as doctor Zoe Gallagher, Andrew Supanz as intern Bartholomew West, Virginia Gay as new nurse unit manager Gabrielle Jaeger and Jolene Anderson as nurse Erica Templeton. John Waters appeared for a run of episodes as surgeon Mike Vlasek before returning full-time the following season. Season ten saw Vincent and Cate written out while Sean was killed off: His replacement was Steve Taylor (Jack Campbell), an old boyfriend of Gabrielle.

The eleventh season would see more comings and goings as Zoe departed mid-season. The latter part of the year saw Erica murdered off-screen, while the death of actor Mark Priestley resulted in Dan Goldman making his last appearance in the season's penultimate episode, the same episode where Jack Quade departed. As a result, the final run of episodes introduced Kip Gamblin as doctor Adam Rossi and Ella Scott Lynch as nurse Claire Anderson. Alix Bidstrup, who had appeared for a run of episodes earlier in the year as Amy Fielding, Frank's niece and a newly qualified nurse, returned as a regular.

In 2009 another attempt to stem the softening ratings and add a bit of excitement to the series, Seven Network executives decided to rejuvenate again, introducing a medical response unit to deal with tricky rescues which involved a helicopter going to remote locations to rescue patients who needed assistance. They would then bring those patients back to the ED and the staff there would assist in their treatment. Along with the addition of the new "department" the show was also renamed to All Saints: Medical Response Unit, the introduction of Mirrah Foulkes and the new MRU proved to lift the ratings substantially, but then levelled out at where they were prior to the revamp.

In June 2009, after months of rumours that the cancellation of All Saints was imminent, a spokeswoman from the Seven Network informed The Daily Telegraph that the episode order had been trimmed. Season twelve of All Saints would screen 24 episodes instead of the usual 40 episodes and that production would cease in August instead of November.

In July 2009, exactly one month later after the first announcement, Tim Worner, Seven's Director of Programming at the time announced that All Saints had been cancelled. He told Michael Idato of the Sydney Morning Herald, "All Saints is a show which Seven and viewers have loved. However, an audience shift and increased production costs are behind this tough decision." He also informed Idato that the episode order trim had been reverted and the season would complete a 37 episode order, finishing on episode 493. It was reported after the announcement that since the introduction of the MRU in 2009 it inflated the cost of each episode to $500,000. Many people still argue as to why the MRU was introduced in the first place or should have been removed instead of axing the show if the network was wanting to cut costs.

In the Feb/Mar 2010 GQ magazine in 2010, Tim Worner said his one regret was "Axing All Saints. But it was the right call at the time and we have two new drama projects in development."

Episode 265
On 20 April 2004, episode 265, "Brave New World" aired, which saw the introduction of John Howard's character, Frank Campion. It was also the first episode to be set in the Emergency Department. This episode attracted lots of controversy.

One patient came into the triage and tried to get help, but he was told to wait. Later on, Nelson heard a phone ring coming from the patient and asked him to turn off the phone. It was later hinted that he had been using the phone to masturbate and it had gotten stuck in his rectum.

The end of the episode saw Frank go introduce himself to Terri (Georgie Parker), who was recovering from heart surgery. During a heated argument about staff members, Frank blatantly said to Terri, "if you ever use your influence with your previous employees to white-ant me again, you will never work in Emergency." Before Terri could get a word in, Frank added, "can I make it any fucking clearer?"

The next day, Channel Seven announced that they had received more than 100 phone calls in Melbourne alone. Parker told the media, "it's a good response because it's not about the shock words—we've sworn on the show before—but because people clearly feel really protective about Terri. It's like they really feel for her as a character and don't like her being under attack by a very confronting man. It's great to know they care for her so much."

On 22 April, the network issued a statement that read, "within an M classification code, coarse language is permitted provided it is appropriate to the storyline or program context." An apology was not made.

Episode 432
On 27 May 2008, episode 432, "Never Tell" aired.

This episode saw a woman pregnant from an incestuous relationship with her brother, told her child may have Down syndrome as a result.

Leading geneticist Dr. David Amor of Murdoch Children's Research Institute stated, "There is absolutely no increase in the risk of Down syndrome for the offspring of incestuous relationships."

Down Syndrome Australia considered legal action, complained to the media regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority and called for a boycott by the show's advertisers if an apology and correction was not aired on All Saints the following week.

Seven responded with, "All Saints values its audience and has the greatest respect for their commitment to the program. Without reservation, to any members of the audience who have found an element of a recent story offensive, Channel Seven apologises."

The final episode
The longer-than-usual 49-minute episode aired at 9:30pm on Tuesday, 27 October 2009. The episode, unlike those in the rest of the season, went back to basics and focused more on the lives of the nurses and doctors as they tended to patients.

The episode saw Judith McGrath's character, Von Ryan tending to a teenage girl who comes into the ED and gives birth without knowing she was pregnant. Tammy Macintosh and John Howard finished their seven- and five-year reigns as Dr. Charlotte Beaumont and Dr. Frank Campion respectively, caring for a woman played by Heather Mitchell who had cystic fibrosis. Ella Scott Lynch and Jonathan Wood left the show on a high with their characters, Claire Anderson and Elliott Parker treating a man (Luke Pegler) with a disease consistent with diabetes and promiscuity.

Secretly, Von decides to resign from All Saints, telling only Frank that she wouldn't be returning. He offers to take her out for dinner, but instead plans a surprise farewell dinner for her. Throughout the dinner, Gabrielle (Virginia Gay) and Steve (Jack Campbell) decide to raise their child together and get back together, Bart (Andrew Supanz) proposes to his girlfriend Amy (Alix Bidstrup) and Charlotte and Adam (Kip Gamblin) share an intense moment.

At the table, Von is pressured to make a speech by her colleagues and friends and reluctantly, she does, uttering her famous line: "I spent a lot of time at All Saints and I'd just like to thank you all for your loyalty, your support and love. Oh bugger this, here's to us." She raises her glass and toasts.

The finale is capped off by a montage of scenes from over the show's twelve-year run, including Mitch's final scene, the closure of Ward 17 and Bron & Ben's wedding, all to The Beatles song, "In My Life".

The final scene sees Frank raise his glass at Von, who raises hers and smiles.

Opening credits
The first opening theme song for All Saints began with several deep breaths and then went into a tune played by a saxophone. The melody bears a striking similarity to "Fly By Night", the first track on Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson's 1983 debut album Walk Into Light. This played over the top of several shots of the cast members. Actors names were in the font Zurich Extra Condensed and underlined. Intercut were shots of hands, various medical equipment and medicine.

The second opening theme song was first used when the opening was upgraded in mid-season two. The same song was used however drums were added to give it more of an authentic sound. The shots of cast changed and names of actors and their characters were now present. The font remained the same. Shots of hands, medical vehicles and equipment were also present.

The first major overhaul of the opening happened in season four, when the titles were completely changed. They now began with several deep breaths over a blue screen with a vision of hands in the background. The screen was set up with a slide of the actor in the centre, with deep blue all around and medical notation. The theme was more stringy and only involved a small saxophone part. Medical crosses, bottles and syringes were present in the opening. This coincided with the change from the standard TV 4:3 aspect ratio to widescreen 16:9.

The second major overhaul of the opening happened in season seven, when the whole layout and font used were completely changed to mark the revamp of the show and its change of focus to the Emergency Department. The basic undertone of the theme was still there, however another saxophone overtone was added tho give the theme more authenticity. The images were also upgraded to include ambulances, surgical equipment and people rushing around in the background. The font changed and actors and characters were now in the font Imprint MT Shadow. This set of opening titles continues until the end of season eight.

At the beginning of season nine, the opening titles credits were ditched and the main cast were listed at the last of every episode with the names returning to their original format and font. This continues until the final episode. In seasons ten and eleven, the actor's name and their corresponding character name flew in from either side, however this idea was dumped when the show returned for its final season.

An intertitle card appeared before every ad break in season nine, however the show returned to fading out in the tenth and eleventh seasons.

At the beginning of the eleventh season, a new title card premiered and this appeared at the start of every episode.

This title card was refurbished for the twelfth and final season to coincide with the change of name. This title card saw the show out.

Awards and nominations
The show has been nominated for fifty six Logie awards and won nine.

Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards
All Saints has won two AFI Awards from the Australian Film Institute and has been nominated for various others.

Home media
Seasons 1 to 5 were released by EMI Australia in 2005 through 2007. EMI lost the DVD rights in 2007, therefore seasons 1 to 5 were discontinued.

Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Australia were later awarded DVD rights to the show, releasing seasons 8 to 12 in 2009 and 2010. The two "missing seasons" - seasons 6 and 7 - were released on 2 March 2011. All 12 seasons are being re-released on DVD in Australia in 2018/2019 by Via Vision Entertainment and Madman Entertainment with the first 3 seasons being released as "All Saints Collection One" and available from September 2018. With "All Saints Collection Two" to follow in November 2018.

title: All Saints (TV series)


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United States congressional committee

A congressional committee is a legislative sub-organization in the United States Congress that handles a specific duty (rather than the general duties of Congress). Committee membership enables members to develop specialized knowledge of the matters under their jurisdiction. As "little legislatures", the committees monitor ongoing governmental operations, identify issues suitable for legislative review, gather and evaluate information, and recommend courses of action to their parent body. Woodrow Wilson once wrote, "it is not far from the truth to say that Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee rooms is Congress at work." It is not expected that a member of Congress be an expert on all matters and subject areas that come before Congress. Congressional committees provide valuable informational services to Congress by investigating and reporting about specialized subjects.

Congress divides its legislative, oversight, and internal administrative tasks among approximately 200 committees and subcommittees. Within assigned areas, these functional subunits gather information; compare and evaluate legislative alternatives; identify policy problems and propose solutions; select, determine, and report measures for full chamber consideration; monitor executive branch performance (oversight); and investigate allegations of wrongdoing. The investigatory functions have always been a key role. In the tabling and wording of new law, procedures such as the House discharge petition process (the process of bringing a bill onto the floor without a committee report or mandatory consent from its leadership) are so laborious and technical that committees, today, dominate the draftsmanship and honing of the detail of many bills laid before Congress. Of the 73 discharge petitions submitted to the full House from 1995 through 2007, only one was successful in securing a definitive yea-or-nay vote for a bill.

The growth in autonomy and overlap of committees has fragmented the power of the Senate and of the House. This dispersion of power may, at times, weaken the legislative branch relative to the other two branches of the federal government, the executive and the judiciary. In his often cited article History of the House of Representatives, written in 1961, American scholar George B. Galloway (1898–1967) wrote: "In practice, Congress functions not as a unified institution, but as a collection of semi-autonomous committees that seldom act in unison." Galloway went on to cite committee autonomy as a factor interfering with the adoption of a coherent legislative program. Such autonomy remains a characteristic feature of the committee system in Congress today.

History
In 1932, a reform movement temporarily reduced the number of signatures required on discharge petitions in the U.S. House of Representatives from a constitutional majority of 218 down to 145, i.e., from one-half to one-third of the House membership. This reform was abolished in a 1935 counterattack led by the intra-House oligarchy. Thus the era of the Great Depression marks the last across-the-board change, albeit a short-lived one, in the autonomy of House standing committees.

The modern committee structure stems from the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, the first and most ambitious restructuring of the standing committee system since the committee system was first developed. The 1946 act reduced the number of House committees from 48 to 19 and the number of Senate committees from 33 to 15. Jurisdictions of all committees were codified by rule in their respective chambers, which helped consolidate or eliminate many existing committees and minimize jurisdictional conflicts.

The Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, a temporary committee established in 1993 to conduct a policy and historical analysis of the committee system, determined that while the 1946 Act was instrumental in streamlining the committee system, it did fail to limit the number of subcommittees allowed on any one committee. Today, Rules in the U.S. House of Representatives generally limit each full committee to five subcommittees, with the exception of Appropriations (12 subcommittees), Armed Services (7), Foreign Affairs (7), and Transportation and Infrastructure (6). There are no limits on the number of subcommittees in the U.S. Senate.

Congress has convened several other temporary review committees to analyze and make recommendations on ways to reform and improve the committee system. For example, the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 led to further reforms to open Congress to further public visibility, strengthen its decision-making capacities, and augment minority rights. The 1970 Act provided for recorded teller votes in the House's Committee of the Whole; allowed minority party committee members to call their own witnesses during a day of hearings; established the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs; and enhanced the research capabilities of two legislative support agencies: the Congressional Research Service and the General Accounting Office.

Between 1994 and 2014, overall committee staffing was reduced by 35 percent. The number of hearings held in the House declined from 6,000 hearings per year in the 1970s, to about 4,000 hearings in 1994, and to just over 2,000 hearings in 2014. Commentators from both major parties have expressed concern regarding the loss of committee capacity to research and develop legislative initiatives.

Senate committees
The first Senate committee was established April 7, 1789, to draw up Senate rules of procedure. In those early days, the Senate operated with temporary select committees, which were responsive to the entire Senate, with the full Senate selecting their jurisdiction and membership. This system provided a great deal of flexibility, as if one committee proved unresponsive, another could be established in its place. The Senate could also forgo committee referral for actions on legislation or presidential nominations. These early committees generally consisted of three members for routine business and five members for more important issues. The largest committee established during the 1st Congress had eleven members, and was created to determine salaries of the president and vice president. Also in the first session, the entire membership of the Senate was divided into two large committees, with half the senators on the committee to prepare legislation establishing the federal judiciary and the other half on the committee to define the punishment of crimes against the United States.

This system proved ineffective, so in 1816 the Senate adopted a formal system of 11 standing committees with five members each. Three of those committees, the Finance, Foreign Relations and the Judiciary Committees exist largely unchanged today, while the duties of the others have evolved into successor committees. With the advent of this new system, committees are able to handle long-term studies and investigations, in addition to regular legislative duties. According to the Senate Historical Office, "the significance of the change from temporary to permanent committees was perhaps little realized at the time." With the growing responsibilities of the Senate, the committees gradually grew to be the key policy-making bodies of the Senate, instead of merely technical aids to the chamber.

By 1906, the Senate maintained 66 standing and select committees—eight more committees than members of the majority party. The large number of committees and the manner of assigning their chairmanships suggests that many of them existed solely to provide office space in those days before the Senate acquired its first permanent office building, the Russell Senate Office Building. There were so many committees that freshman Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin was assigned chairmanship of the Committee to Investigate the Condition of the Potomac River Front at Washington. According to La Follette, he "had immediate visions of cleaning up the whole Potomac River front. Then [he] found that in all its history, the committee had never had a bill referred to it for consideration, and had never held a meeting." In 1920, the Congressional Directory listed nearly 80 committees, including the Committee on the Disposition of Useless Papers in the Executive Departments. By May 27, 1920, the Russell Senate Office Building had opened, and with all Senate members assigned private office space, the Senate quietly abolished 42 committees.

Today the Senate operates with 21 committees (16 standing and 5 select). These select committees, however, are permanent in nature and are treated as standing committees under Senate rules.

House committees
The first House committee was appointed on April 2, 1789, to "prepare and report such standing rules and orders of proceeding" as well as the duties of a Sergeant-at-Arms to enforce those rules. Other committees were created as needed, on a temporary basis, to review specific issues for the full House. The House relied primarily on the Committee of the Whole to handle the bulk of legislative issues. In response to the House's need for more detailed advice on certain issues, more specific committees with broader authority were established. One of the first—a three-member committee "to prepare and report an estimate of supplies ... and of nett [sic] produce of the impost"—was established on April 29, 1789. The Committee on Ways and Means followed on July 24, 1789, during a debate on the creation of the Treasury Department over concerns of giving the new department too much authority over revenue proposals. The House felt it would be better equipped if it established a committee to handle the matter. This first Committee on Ways and Means had 11 members and existed for just two months. It later became a standing committee in 1801, a position it still holds today.

Committee assignment procedure
The appointment of Senate committee members is formally made by the whole Senate, and the whole House formally appoints House committee members, but the choice of members is actually made by the political parties. Generally, each party honors the preferences of individual members, giving priority on the basis of seniority.

In the Senate, each party is allocated seats on committees generally in proportion to its overall strength in the Senate as a whole. Membership on most House committees are also in rough proportion to the party's strength in the House as a whole, with two major exceptions: on the House Rules Committee, the majority party fills nine of the thirteen seats; and on the House Ethics Committee, each party has an equal number of seats.

In each committee, a member of the majority party serves as its chairperson, while a member of the minority party serves as its ranking member. Four Senate committees instead refer to the ranking minority member as vice chairperson: the Senate Committee on Appropriations, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The chairpersons and ranking members in each committee are also elected by the political parties.

An analysis of U.S. House of Representative committee request letters from the 92nd, 93rd, 97th, 98th, 100th, and 101st Congresses showed that the most common justifications raised by members seeking a committee assignment were prior professional experience, geography, and electoral considerations, in that order. About 80 percent of justifications in the letters fell into one of these three categories. Members who request an assignment to the House Armed Services Committee tend to have a greater military presence in their district, while members requesting assignment to the House Interior Committee generally tend to come from sparsely populated areas with more land held in public trust.

Types of committees
There are three main types of committees—standing, select or special, and joint.

Standing committees
Standing committees are permanent panels identified as such in chamber rules (House Rule X, Senate Rule XXV).

Because they have legislative jurisdiction, standing committees consider bills and issues and recommend measures for consideration by their respective chambers. They also have oversight responsibility to monitor agencies, programs, and activities within their jurisdictions, and in some cases in areas that cut across committee jurisdictions.

Most standing committees recommend funding levels—authorizations—for government operations and for new and existing programs. A few have other functions. For example, the Appropriations Committees recommend appropriations legislation to provide budget authority for federal agencies and programs. The Budget Committees establish aggregate levels for total spending and revenue that serve as guidelines for the work of the authorizing and appropriating panels.

Select or special committees
Select or special committees are established generally by a separate resolution of the chamber, sometimes to conduct investigations and studies, and, on other occasions, also to consider measures. Often, select committees examine emerging issues that do not fit clearly within existing standing committee jurisdictions, or that cut across jurisdictional boundaries. A select committee may be permanent or temporary (all current select committees in the House and Senate are considered permanent committees). Instead of select, the Senate sometimes uses the term special committee (as in the Special Committee on Aging).

Joint committees
Joint committees are permanent panels that include members from both chambers, which generally conduct studies or perform housekeeping tasks rather than consider measures. For instance, the Joint Committee on Printing oversees the functions of the Government Printing Office and general printing procedures of the federal government. The chairmanship of joint committees usually alternates between the House and Senate.

four joint committees: the Economic, Library, Printing, and Taxation committees.

A conference committee is an ad hoc joint committee formed to resolve differences between similar but competing House and Senate versions of a bill. Conference committees draft compromises between the positions of the two chambers, which are then submitted to the full House and Senate for approval.

Apart from conference committees, most joint committees are permanent. But temporary joint committees have been created to address specific issues (such as the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War during the American Civil War, and a Joint Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies to manage presidential and vice-presidential inaugurations).

Other
Other committees are also used in the modern Congress.

 * Subcommittees are formed by most committees to share specific tasks within the jurisdiction of the full committee. Subcommittees are responsible to, and work within the guidelines established by, their parent committees. In particular, standing committees usually create subcommittees with legislative jurisdiction to consider and report bills. They may assign their subcommittees such specific tasks as the initial consideration of measures and oversight of laws and programs in the subcommittees' areas.
 * Committee of the Whole—used by the House of Representatives, but not the modern Senate

Current committees
In the House of Representatives, there are 20 permanent committees, and 21 in the United States Senate. Four joint committees operate with members from both houses on matters of mutual jurisdiction and oversight.

Committees in the House of Representatives generally have more members, due to its larger size, as compared to the smaller 100-member Senate. Senate rules fix the maximum size for many of its committees, while the House determines the size and makeup of each committee every new Congress.

title: United States congressional committee