On 11 July 2005, the IOC voted to drop baseball and softball from the Olympic program for 2012, a decision that was reaffirmed on 9 February 2006. The vote to keep softball on the programme required a simple majority of the 105 eligible voters, but the vote ended up as 52–52 with one abstention. It was officially decided in August 2009 at IOC Board meeting in Berlin that it will not be included in the 2016 Summer Olympics. This was the first time in 69 years that sports had been removed from the Olympic programme, with polo the sport removed in 1936. The selection of which sports to include on the London Programme was done via secret ballot.