Pricking For Sheriffs
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary · Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary
In England, when the yearly list of persons nominated for the office of sheriff is submitted to the queen, she took a pin, and to insure impartiality, as it is said, she let the point of it fall upon one of the three names nominated for each county, etc., and the person upon whose name it chanced to fall was sheriff for the ensuing year. This is called "pricking for sheriffs."
Atk. Sheriffs, 18.