Adult Franchise
Right to express one’s choice by vote is called Franchise. When the right to vote or franchise is given to every adult in a state, it is known as the Universal Adult Franchise.
In its original 19th-century usage by reformers in Britain, universal suffrage was understood to mean only universal manhood suffrage; the vote was extended to women later, during the women’s suffrage movement.
There are variations among countries in terms of specifics of the right to vote; the minimum age is usually between 18 and 25 years (see age of majority) and “the insane, certain classes of convicted criminals, and those punished for certain electoral offenses” sometimes lack the right to vote.
Evolution of universal adult suffrage around the globe
France, under the 1793 Jacobin constitution, was the first major country to enact suffrage for all adult males, though it was never formally used in practice (the subsequent election occurring in 1795 after the fall of the Jacobin government in 1794). Elsewhere in the Francophone world, the Republic of Haiti legislated for universal male suffrage in 1816. The Second French Republic instituted adult male suffrage after the revolution of 1848.
Following the French revolutions, movements in the Western world toward universal suffrage occurred in the early 19th century, and focused on removing property requirements for voting. In 1867 Germany (the North German Confederation) enacted suffrage for all adult males.
On 19 September 1893 the British Governor of New Zealand, Lord Glasgow, gave assent to a new electoral act, which meant that New Zealand became the first British-controlled colony in which women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections.This was followed shortly after by the colony of South Australia in 1894, which was the second to allow women to vote, but the first colony to permit women to stand for election as well. Twelve years later, the autonomous Russian territory known as Grand Duchy of Finland (which became the Republic of Finland in 1917) became the first territory in the world to implement unrestricted universal suffrage, as women could stand as candidates, unlike in New Zealand, and without indigenous ethnic exclusion, like in Australia. It also lead to the election of the world’s first female members of parliament the following year. Federal states and colonial or autonomous territories prior to World War I have multiple examples of early introduction of universal suffrage. However, these legal changes were effected with the permission of the British, Russian or other government bodies, which were considered the sovereign nation at the time. For this reason, Australia (1901), New Zealand (1908) and Finland (1917) all have different dates of achieving independent nationhood.
In the United States, the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1870 during the Reconstruction era, provided that “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Despite the amendment, however, blacks were disfranchised in the former Confederate states after 1877; Southern officials ignored the amendment and blocked black citizens from voting through a variety of devices, including poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses. Southern blacks did not effectively receive the right to vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In 1893 the self-governing colony New Zealand became the first country in the world (except for the short-lived 18th-century Corsican Republic) to grant active universal suffrage by giving women the right to vote. It did not grant universal full suffrage (the right to both vote and be a candidate, or both active and passive suffrage) until 1919.
Evolution of adult suffrage in India
In less than a week’s time, the people of India, irrespective of their caste, creed, education or income, like they have done 16 times before, will elect members to the Lok Sabha. This is made possible by the Constitution of India, 1950 that encodes the principle of universal adult franchise.
This principle was denied to Indians during British rule, chiefly by the Government of India Acts of 1919 and 1935, two critical pieces of British legislation that governed colonial India. Under these Acts, only those who satisfied certain criteria that included income, property and education could vote for members of the provincial and central legislatures. On average, only 3-10% of the Indian population were allowed to exercise their franchise. For decades, most Indians had no voice in elections.
A significant strand of the Indian freedom movement was centred around demands for universal adult franchise. We find this articulated in most Indian historical constitutions, the earliest of which
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