bulletin n.

"papal edict, highest authoritative document issued by or in the name of a pope," c. 1300, from Medieval Latin bulla "sealed document" (source of Old French bulle, Italian bulla), originally the word for the seal itself, from Latin bulla "round swelling, knob," said ultimately to be from Gaulish, from PIE *beu-, a root supposed to have formed a large group of words meaning "much, great, many," also words associated with swelling, bumps, and blisters (source also of Lithuanian bulė "buttocks," Middle Dutch puyl "bag," also possibly Latin bucca "cheek").

diminutive noun-forming element, Middle English, from Old French -elet, which often is a double-diminutive. It consists of Old French diminutive -et, -ette (see -et) added to nouns in -el, which in many cases represents Latin diminutive -ellus; see -el (2)). "The formation did not become common until the 18th c." [OED].

1540s, "small ball used in voting," also "secret vote taken by ballots," from Italian pallotte, diminutive of palla "ball," for small balls used as counters in secret voting, from a Germanic source (from PIE root *bhel- (2) "to blow, swell"). The earliest references are to Venice. By 1776 the sense of the word had been extended to tickets or sheets of paper used in secret voting. Ballot box attested from 1670s; metonymically from 1834 as "system or practice of voting by ballot."