Include pictures of the items or people on the ballot to make it easier for the students. This will be helpful if the voting takes place at an elementary school or a school with ESL students.
Place a line for the student's name and classroom on the ballot, then have a raffle and pull out a couple of ballots and give out prizes. This will increase participation in the election.
Hold the election during lunchtime or recess so that it doesn't take away from valuable classroom time or inconvenience the teachers.
Have the students place their votes in two or three different holes in the ballot box. Use a divider to separate the inside into different sections. This will save you the time-consuming task of separating the votes so that you can go straight to the counting process. You may not even need to count; you can probably see which section has the most ballots in it.