Talk:Universal suffrage

Britain allowed women to vote in 1918, but only if they were over 30, whereas back then the age when men could vote was 21. Does this count as universal suffrage or not?

- Rich

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My knowledge of English, and history in the Anglo-Saxon world, might be the problem, but I get confused by the current definition of Universal suffrage.

I would, according to my prior knowledge and understanding, say that Common suffrage is the extension of voting privileges to all adults, without distinction to race, sex, belief or social status.

At the moment it's the race-issue which is stressed, which doesn't fit with my understanding. Sex and social status were at least as critical, as far as I know. But I must admit that this is grounded on my assembled reading on history, mostly in German, to some degree also in Danish, Swedish and French. I can not now point out any written sources to my support.

Maybe Universal suffrage is something else than Common suffrage?

-- Ruhrjung 16:22 May 5, 2003 (UTC)

From memory, Ruhrjung, "common suffrage" and "adult suffrage" mean the same thing. (But I haven't looked it up lately.) Both are normally used as synonyms for "universal suffrage", which is not strictly correct. The term we should use is "adult suffrage", as most (all?) places deny persons of less than a certain age the vote. (As an aside, I was unable to understand the justice in this when I was a child, and remain equally unable to understand it to this day. But there you are: the world is not always as we should like it to be.) Tannin.

I made a minor rewrite. -- Ruhrjung 15:47 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

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This is something different.... Reserving seats for communal groups isn't particularly uncommon, and it's different from denying the right to vote.

Most societies today no longer maintain such provisions, but a few still do. For example, Fiji reserves a certain number of seats in its Parliament for each of its main ethnic groups; these provisions were adopted in order to discriminate against Indians in favour of ethnic Fijians. Pakistan reserves certain seats in parliament for voting by "frontier" tribes.

--- Roadrunner

I have changed the date of universal suffrage in the USA to 1920, that being the date when women gained the right to vote. Let us recall that it was in 1870, five years after the abolition of slavery, that the constitution was amended to provide that neither federal nor state laws could deny the right to vote because of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude". If the fact that in some areas Blacks were systematically illegally denied the right to vote is to be cited as a reason to say that the USA did not grant universal suffrage until 1962, then the degree of enforcement of legal rights in other countries should be closely scrutinized as well. Michael Hardy 18:31, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Universal suffrage -- New Zealand

The chronological entry for New Zealand as granting universal suffrage in 1993 is completely wrong. Adult males were granted the vote irrespective of property qualifications in 1879 and women in 1893. Therefore, depending on how this chronological list defines universal suffrage, New Zealand was the first country in the world to grant universal suffrage to adult men and women in 1893. If anyone else can let me know of another country that predates NZ in this I would be most grateful. john.wilson@parliament.govt.nz

New Zealand did indeed extend equal franchise to women in 1893, irrespective of property ownership, as men had achieved in 1879. However, the article states that there were inequalities with Maori franchise. Of this, I do not know. But if there were regulatory restrictions on the Maori right to vote, this would mean South Australia (at the time of equal legal status to NZ) was the first polity to grant universal suffrage. --Cyberjunkie 15:16, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The phrase "inequalities in the Maori franchise" presumably means the existence of separate Maori seats in Parliament, elected from a separate Maori roll. Initially the Maori franchise had a property qualification but I think this was removed in 1879. As to South Australia, were Aborigenes able to vote in SA before the federation? Lisiate 02:45, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Federation had no implications on the eligibility of voters in the States. Aboriginal men first gained the right to vote along with other men in the 1860's. Indigenous women followed in 1894 with other women. However, there is a school-of-thought that says they had the right to vote not because it was given to them, but because they were not specifically excluded from it. I'd dispute that.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 02:54, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Ambiguity in the listing

It's unclear as to whether the years given in the chronological listing are the ones when the countries granted Universal suffrage or when they revoked it. The opening line in the section is causing this confusion.

-- Sundar 04:14, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

Candidacy

Does the term universal suffrage also include equal right to stand as a candidate in general elections? 130.232.129.242 15:14, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Switzerland -- 1990?

Who was it who couldn't vote in Switzwerland until 1990? --Jfruh 18:50, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

women Septentrionalis 20:33, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Throughout the country? Or just in certain cantons? --Jfruh 21:02, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

This site (click on history) says throughout the country, but the date is 1971. Hmmm Septentrionalis 21:09, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

• Women's suffrage was introduced, by (male) referendum, for federal elections in 1971, but for cantonal elections, the last canton to introduce women's suffrage had to do so by supreme court order in 1990. I' ve updated the page accordingly. Sandstein 21:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

United States

The article defines universal suffrage as including "right to vote, without distinction as to social status". Until 1964, in some parts of the US, payment of a poll tax was a pre-condition of the right to vote. -- Naive cynic 20:29, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This is (in law) disenfranchisement of paupers. (Practice differed, as is stated.) This should be noted as a general exception, like felony disenfranchisement, but I suspect it is true of most of the early claims. Septentrionalis 02:47, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

In the United Kingdom in 1928 only adults above the age of 21 were allowed to vote. It wasn't until 1969 that it was reduced to 18.

Felon disenfranchisement

The article read: Most so-called "universal" suffrage systems still exclude some potential voters. For example, many jurisdictions deny the vote to various categories of convicted criminals or the mentally ill, and almost all jurisdictions deny the vote to non-citizen residents and citizens under the age of 18..

This is weasly, and possibly US-centric. I cannot find any souce claiming that most democracies have any exclusion within their universal suffrage. According to Human Rights Watch [1], it is very few, and only USA, Finland and New Zealand restrict convict's right to vote after the conclusion of their prison sentence. The USA is alone in barring voting for life.

I'm changing 'most' and 'many' here to 'some', until someone can provide some evidence that the majority of nations with universal suffrage restrict it in some way.

"right to vote, to all adults, without distinction as to race, sex, belief or social status."

According to the definition given, it can still be considered that the country is granting universal suffrage if some prisoners are not allowed to vote. If you need to mention that some countries don't grant full uni. suff. because they don't allow prisoners to vote, the definition would need to be changed. AFAIK, in the aforementioned countries people aren't sent to prison according to their race, sex, belief or social status (with the possible exception of some cases in USA/Guantanamo(etc.); and if murdering people for the sake of it isn't considered a 'belief').--85.49.225.8 23:37, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

United Kingdom

I'm not 100% sure, but I doubt that all voters in British overseas territories were granted the right to vote in 1928. For example, were all the people in India allowed to vote? (If someone who knows more about this could answer). For some reason, I'm just under the suspicion that not all of the few hundred million people were, in fact, allowed to vote in UK elections, even though in theory they were British, right? --85.49.225.8 23:37, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

The dominions and colonies were never part of the United Kingdom and so did not have representation in the UK Parliament, although people born there were British. Since there was no member of Parliament for Nairobi, a Kenyan and an Englishman in Nairobi would both equally not be able to vote in any UK election, as postal voting was only introduced in the 1980s (voters in the armed services were allowed to much earlier). However, a Kenyan/Australian resident in London would be able to elect the local MP, as they can still do to this day. Andrew Yong 12:04, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

1918 Act

Although the 1918 Act is now mainly remembered as giving women the vote, it was also the first acceptance of Universal Suffrage for men in the UK. It abolished the property and household qualifications which had, until then, disenfrachised a large part of the male working-class population. Estimates of the proportion of men eligible to vote prior to 1918 vary from only 60% to as low as 40%. This effectively barred socialist political parties from representation. (This parallels the use of poll-tax and other "social status" devices to restrict African-American representation in the US.)

The popular suffragist movement in the early 20th century in the UK was therefore for "votes for (working-class) men" as well as for "votes for women". The imposition of a lower age limit of 30 years on women in the 1918 Act was a compromise, which saved "face" for the UK Establishment by them not having to introduce full Univ. Suff. in one fell swoop. Accepting this compromise was a major point of contention between the main suffrage movement and the much smaller minority suffragette movement led by the Pankhursts. Full Universal Suffrage was then granted 10 years later in the Act of 1928.

So the UK experience is that property and social restrictions are at least as important as restrictions on the grounds of race or religion or sex as bars to Univ. Suff.

[User:Geoffrey Watson --220.237.74.218 13:14, 8 January 2006 (UTC)]

Pre-Nazi, under Nazi and post-Nazi Europe

"Germany -- 1918, Hungary -- 1918, Poland -- 1919" Hmm, this is odd. These countries, along with many others, denied some groups not only the voting right, but the citizenship and even the right to live. Please correct me if I am wrong, but from this line one can deduce that Germany, Hungary and Poland were shining lights of democracy since 1918-19. See Nuremberg Laws. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 12:49, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

The social democrats were in power in Germany after the First World War. As in other European countries they have been the most venomous in order to get universal suffrage passed in the parliaments. Intangible 12:55, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

In light of Nuremberg Laws of 1935, it is totally wrong to imply any continuity since 1918. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 00:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to revert at least part of your changes, since most countries that were occupied by the Nazis have seen no elections during that time. Intangible 01:24, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Please don't do blind-revert. Instead, why not have a couple of words on this important period. Thanks. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 01:53, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Finland was not occupied by the Nazis, never having been at war with them; please don't clutter this page with nonsense. Septentrionalis 06:26, 1 March 2006 (UTC)