William Robinson Boothby (1829–1903), was Electoral Commissioner for South Australia, in charge of every parliamentary election from 1856 to 1903.
Boothby was the eldest son of South Australian Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Boothby.
On 2 April 1856, South Australia enacted a law introducing the secret ballot, adopted two weeks earlier in Victoria. Boothby pioneered this reform, based on ballots pre-printed with the candidates names. In a manner similar to that still used widely today, the voter marked the form in secret and placed it in a sealed box. The ballots were collected and counted so that no one could be identified from their voting paper.
This was a significant change from the then used English practice, where elections were conducted "on the voices". Voters assembled at local election centres where they called out the name of their chosen candidate, and the choice was then entered on a register. This public process made the voter vulnerable to both bribery and intimidation, and caused wide concern.
Boothby's system was adopted for use in Federal government elections in Australia. In the second half of the 19th century, the use of the secret ballot spread to the USA and to Europe; in 1892 Grover Cleveland became the first US President elected by Boothby’s system, universally referred to as 'the Australian ballot' for nearly a century.
Boothby was the State Returning Officer for the first Australian House of Representatives election in 1901. The Federal seat of Boothby, established in 1903 in Adelaide, was named in his honour.