Suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums. In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to vote is called active suffrage, as distinct from passive suffrage, which is the right to stand for election. The combination of active and passive suffrage is sometimes called full suffrage.
In most democracies, eligible voters can vote in elections for representatives. Voting on issues by referendum may also be available. For example, in Switzerland, this is permitted at all levels of government. In the United States, some states allow citizens the opportunity to write, propose, and vote on referendums ; other states and the federal government do not. Referendums in the United Kingdom are rare.
Suffrage continues to be especially restricted on the basis of age, residency and citizenship status in many places. In some countries additional restrictions exist. In Great Britain and the United States a felon might lose the right to vote. In some countries being under guardianship may restrict the right to vote. Non-resident citizen voting allows emigrants and expats of some countries to vote in their home country. Resident non-citizens can vote in some countries, which may be restricted to citizens of closely linked countries or to certain offices or questions. Multiple citizenship typically allows to vote in multiple countries. Historically the right to vote was more restricted, for example by gender, race, or wealth.
Etymology
The word suffrage comes from Latin suffragium, which initially meant "a voting-tablet", "a ballot", "a vote", or "the right to vote". Suffragium in the second century and later came to mean "political patronage, influence, interest, or support", and sometimes "popular acclaim" or "applause". By the fourth century the word was used for "an intercession", asking a patron for their influence with the Almighty. Suffragium was used in the fifth and sixth centuries with connection to buying influence or profiteering from appointing to office, and eventually the word referred to the bribe itself. William Smith rejects the connection of suffragium to sub "under" + fragor "crash, din, shouts ", related to frangere "to break"; Eduard Wunder writes that the word may be related to suffrago, signifying an ankle bone or knuckle bone. In the 17th century the English suffrage regained the earlier meaning of the Latin suffragium, "a vote" or "the right to vote".Types
Universal suffrage
would be achieved when all have the right to vote without restriction. It could, for example, look like a system where everyone was presumed to have the right to vote unless a government can prove beyond a reasonable doubt the need to revoke voting rights. The trend towards universal suffrage has progressed in some democracies by eliminating some or all of the voting restrictions due to gender, race, religion, social status, education level, wealth, citizenship, ability and age. However, throughout history the term 'universal suffrage' has meant different things, with the different assumptions about the groups that were or were not deemed desirable voters.Early history
The short-lived Corsican Republic was the first country to grant limited universal suffrage to all citizens over the age of 25.In 1819, 60–80,000 women and men from 30 miles around Manchester assembled in the city's St. Peter's Square to protest their lack of any representation in the Houses of Parliament. Historian Robert Poole has called the Peterloo Massacre one of the defining moments of its age. At that time Manchester had a population of around 140,000 and the population totals of Greater Manchester were around 490,000.
This was followed by other experiments in the Paris Commune of 1871 and the island republic of Franceville. From 1840 to 1852, the Kingdom of Hawai'i granted universal suffrage without mention of sex. In 1893, when the Kingdom of Hawai'i was overthrown in a coup, New Zealand was the only independent country to practice universal suffrage, and the Freedom in the World index lists New Zealand as the only free country in the world in 1893.
Women's suffrage
is the right of women to vote. This was the goal of the suffragists, who believed in using legal means, as well as the suffragettes, who used extremist measures. Short-lived suffrage equity was drafted into provisions of the State of New Jersey's first, 1776 Constitution, which extended the Right to Vote to unwed female landholders and black land owners.However, the document did not specify an Amendment procedure, and the provision was subsequently replaced in 1844 by the adoption of the succeeding constitution, which reverted to "all white male" suffrage restrictions.
Although the Kingdom of Hawai'i granted female suffrage in 1840, the right was rescinded in 1852. Limited voting rights were gained by some women in Sweden, Britain, and some western U.S. states in the 1860s. In 1893, the British colony of New Zealand became the first self-governing nation to extend the right to vote to all adult women. In 1894, the women of South Australia achieved the right to both vote and stand for Parliament. The autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland in the Russian Empire was the first nation to allow all women to both vote and run for parliament.
Anti-women's suffrage propaganda
Those against the women's suffrage movement made public organizations to put down the political movement, with the main argument being that a woman's place was in the home, not polls. Political cartoons and public outrage over women's rights increased as the opposition to suffrage worked to organize legitimate groups campaigning against women's voting rights. The Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women was one organization that came out of the 1880s to put down the voting efforts.Much anti-suffrage propaganda poked fun at the idea of women in politics. Political cartoons displayed the most sentiment by portraying the issue of women's suffrage to be swapped with men's lives. Some mocked the popular suffrage hairstyle of full-upward combed hair. Others depicted young girls turning into suffragettes after a failure in life, such as not being married.
Equal suffrage
Equal suffrage is sometimes confused with Universal suffrage, although the meaning of the former is the removal of graded votes, wherein a voter could possess a number of votes in accordance with income, wealth or social status.Passive suffrage
Census suffrage
Also known as "censitary suffrage", it is the opposite of equal suffrage, meaning that the votes cast by those eligible to vote are not equal, but weighed differently according to the person's income or rank in society. In many countries, census suffrage restricted who could vote and be elected: in the United States, until the Jacksonian reforms of the 1830s, only men who owned land of a specified acreage or monetary value could vote or participate in elections. Similarly, in Brazil, the Constitution of 1824 established that, in order to vote, citizens would need to have an annual income of 200,000 milréis and, to be voted, their minimum annual income would need to be 400,000 milréis.Compulsory suffrage
Where compulsory suffrage exists, those who are eligible to vote are required by law to do so. Thirty-two countries currently practise this form of suffrage.Business vote
In local government in England and some of its ex-colonies, businesses formerly had, and in some places still have, a vote in the urban area in which they paid rates. This is an extension of the historical property-based franchise from natural persons to other legal persons.In the United Kingdom, the Corporation of the City of London has retained and even expanded business vote, following the passing of the City of London Act 2002. This has given business interests within the City of London, which is a major financial centre with few residents, the opportunity to apply the accumulated wealth of the corporation to the development of an effective lobby for UK policies. This includes having the City Remembrancer, financed by the City's Cash, as a parliamentary agent, provided with a special seat in the House of Commons located in the under-gallery facing the Speaker's chair. In a leaked document from 2012, an official report concerning the City's Cash revealed that the aim of major occasions such as set-piece sumptuous banquets featuring national politicians was "to increase the emphasis on complementing hospitality with business meetings consistent with the City corporation's role in supporting the City as a financial centre".
The first issue taken up by the Northern Ireland civil rights movement was the business vote, abolished in 1968.
In the Republic of Ireland, commercial ratepayers can vote in local plebiscites, for changing the name of the locality or street, or delimiting a business improvement district. From 1930 to 1935, 5 of 35 members of Dublin City Council were "commercial members".
In cities in most Australian states, voting is optional for businesses but compulsory for individuals.
Some municipalities in Delaware allow corporations to vote on local matters.
Basis of exclusion
Gender
In ancient Athens, often cited as the birthplace of democracy, only adult, male citizens who owned land were permitted to vote. Through subsequent centuries, Europe was generally ruled by monarchs, though various forms of parliament arose at different times. The high rank ascribed to abbesses within the Catholic Church permitted some women the right to sit and vote at national assemblies – as with various high-ranking abbesses in Medieval Germany, who were ranked among the independent princes of the empire. Their Protestant successors enjoyed the same privilege almost into modern times.Marie Guyart, a French nun who worked with the First Nations peoples of Canada during the seventeenth century, wrote in 1654 regarding the suffrage practices of Iroquois women, "These female chieftains are women of standing amongst the savages, and they have a deciding vote in the councils. They make decisions there like the men, and it is they who even delegated the first ambassadors to discuss peace." The Iroquois, like many First Nations peoples in North America, had a matrilineal kinship system. Property and descent were passed through the female line. Women elders voted on hereditary male chiefs and could depose them.
The emergence of many modern democracies began with male citizens obtaining the right to vote in advance of female citizens, except in the Kingdom of Hawai'i, where universal suffrage without mention of age or sex was introduced in 1840; however, a constitutional amendment in 1852 rescinded female voting and put property qualifications on male voting.
Voting rights for women were introduced into international law by the United Nations' Human Rights Commission, whose elected chair was Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1948 the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Article 21 states: " Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures."
The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Political Rights of Women, which went into force in 1954, enshrining the equal rights of women to vote, hold office, and access public services as set out by national laws. One of the most recent jurisdictions to acknowledge women's full right to vote was Bhutan in 2008. Most recently, in 2011 King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia let women vote in the 2015 local elections and be appointed to the Consultative Assembly.