Universal+suffrage

__**Universal Suffrage** __

= =

//**What is Universal Suffrage?**//
Suffrage is the right for a person to vote, therefore universal is the right for everyone to vote, no matter age, gender, race, religion, ethnicity, culture, wealth, social status, etc. Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole. Although suffrage has two components (the right to vote and opportunities to vote), the term universal suffrage is associated only with the right to vote. [1,2,3,4]

//**Different Forms of Suffrage**//
[1]
 * __Women's suffrage__ is the right of women to vote on the same terms as men.
 * __Equal suffrage__ is sometimes confused with //Universal suffrage//, although its meaning is the removal of graded votes, where a voter could possess a number of votes in accordance with income, wealth or social status.
 *  __ Census suffrage __, also known as "censitary suffrage", the opposite of //Equal suffrage,// meaning that the votes cast by those eligible to vote are not equal, but are weighed differently according to the person's rank in the census.

= = =//Forms of Exclusion// =

Although by definition universal suffrage means every citizen is allowed to vote, distinctions are frequently made in regard to religion, wealth, knowledge, race, age, criminality, residency, naturalization, and function.


 * ** Religion - ** In the aftermath of the Reformation it was common in European countries for people of disfavored religious denominations to be denied civil and political rights, often including the right to vote, to stand for election or to sit in parliament. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, Roman Catholics were denied the right to vote from 1728 to 1793, and the right to sit in parliament until 1829. The anti-Catholic policy was justified on the grounds that the loyalty of Catholics supposedly lay with the Pope rather than the national monarch.In Canada, several religious groups (Mennonites, Hutterites, Doukhobors) were disenfranchised by the wartime Elections Act of 1917, mainly because they opposed military service.
 * ** Wealth, tax class, social class - ** Until the nineteenth century, many Western democracies had property qualifications in their electoral laws; e.g. only landowners could vote (because the only tax for such countries was the property tax), or the voting rights were weighed according to the amount of taxes paid (as in the Prussian three-class franchise). Most countries abolished the property qualification for national elections in the late nineteenth century, but retained it for local government elections for several decades. Today these laws have largely been abolished, although the homeless may not be able to register because they lack regular addresses.
 * ** Knowledge - ** Sometimes the right to vote has been limited to people who had achieved a certain level of education or passed a certain test, e.g. "literacy tests" in some states of the US.
 * ** Race - ** Various countries, usually with large non-white populations, have historically denied the vote to people of particular races or to non-whites in general.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">** Age - ** All modern democracies require voters to meet age qualifications to vote. Worldwide voting ages are not consistent, differing between countries and even within counties, usually between 16 and 21 years. ‍
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">** Criminality - ** Many countries restrict the voting rights of convicted criminals. Some countries, and some U.S. states, also deny the right to vote to those convicted of serious crimes after they are released from prison.Canada allowed only prisoners serving a term of less than 2 years the right to vote, but this was found unconstitutional in 2002 by the Supreme Court of Canada, and all prisoners were allowed to vote as of the 2004 Canadian federal election.All US states with the exceptions of Maine & Vermont disenfranchise some felons from voting depending on their current incarceration, parole or probation status; a number US states permanently disenfranchise some felons, even after their release from prison.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">** Residency - ** Sometimes citizens become ineligible to vote because they are no longer resident in their country of citizenship. U.S. citizens voting abroad vote as residents of the last state where they (or their parents) lived; British people, however, cannot vote for their national parliament unless they have lived in the UK in the last fifteen years. **‍**
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">** Naturalization - ** In some countries, naturalized citizens do not enjoy the right of vote and/or to be candidate, either permanently or for a determined period.Ordinary naturalized citizens and citizens who had acquired Belgian nationality through marriage were only admitted to vote, but not to be candidate, for parliamentary elections in 1976. The concepts of ordinary and grande naturalization were suppressed from the Constitution in 1991.In France, the 1889 Nationality Law barred those who had acquired the French nationality by naturalization or marriage from voting, eligibility and access to several public jobs.In the United States, the President and Vice President must be natural-born citizens.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">** Function - ** In France, an 1872 law, rescinded only by a 1945 decree, prohibited all army personnel from voting.In the United Kingdom, public servants have to resign before running for an election.A few nations also restrict those who are involved in the military or police forces, as it is in the case of Kuwait.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">//**History**//
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">Originally, the concept of universal suffrage referred only to male citizens, and the **first country** to explicitly claim the use of universal suffrage was **France**, during the French Revolution. However, turmoil and chaos in the country made it highly ineffective. [13]

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">In many countries, only men who owned property, were of a certain social status, or were able to pay a certain amount of taxes were able to vote before the 19th century. However, during the 19th century those qualifications were largely abolished, resulting in universal men only suffrage. [13]

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">**//Women Suffrage//:**
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">Also during the 19th century, many women started realizing their importance in society and started protesting for their own right to vote. Although it was huge struggle for women, the protests eventually led to the abolishment of restrictions against women voting in many countries, achieving **universal suffrage**. [13] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">**__New Zealand__** was the first major nation in the world to achieve universal suffrage in 1893, and the movements were primarily led by women like __Katherine Wilson Sheppard__, a prominent member of the New Zealand's Women suffrage movement. Due to the fact that New Zealand was the first country to achieve universal suffrage, Sheppard's work made a big impact on women suffrage movements in many other countries through Britain and its colonies, the United States and northern Europe. [13]

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">//- Katherine Wilson Sheppard [14]//
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">After New Zealand, most countries granted universal suffrage to their citizens about ten to twenty years after universal male only suffrage was granted. [10, 13]

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">In **Canada**, movements for women suffrage begun in 1878 under the leadership of Dr. Emily Howard Stowe, the first president of the Dominion Women's Enfranchisement Association (also known as the Canadian Suffrage Association), and her daughter, Augusta Stowe-Gullen. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">

==<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**//"As educated citizens, as moral and loving women, [we] desire to be placed in a position to impress directly our thought upon our nation and time."//** ==

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">//- Emily Howard Stowe [5]//
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">After closely following the association, Sir John A. Macdonald introduced a bill into parliament to grant Dominion franchise to unmarried women with required qualifications. This bill was reintroduced in 1884, but was defeated. Petitions for the enfranchisement of women from the Canadian Women's Suffrage Association and the Women's Christian Temperance Union increased, and those petitions were then presented to parliament in 1894 and 1896. However, due to a change in the Electoral Act, it made further efforts useless as the Dominion and provincial voters' lists coincided, making women suffrage a provincial issue. [6,9]

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">First municipal franchise was granted to widows and spinsters in Ontario in 1884, followed by New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and North West Territories in the 1890s, and Alberta in 1910. Nova Scotia included married women who owned property, and had a husband who was disqualified. British Columbia and Manitoba included all female tax-payers. All provinces made much efforts in petitioning for full women suffrage. Some were passed with ease while some were defeated many times before being passed. Manitoba was the first province to succeed in the enfranchisement of women.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">In 1917, due to conscription for war, a War Time Election Act was passed by the Dominion parliament, granting women in all provinces who were closely related to those in active service during the war the right to vote. Women who were not granted franchise started a storm of protests, but Sir Robert Borden pledged to equal suffrage for women during his campaign. With him returning to power, he introduced a bill to extend suffrage to all women in 1920. This bill was passed and became the Dominion Elections Act. Therefore, in **1920,** citizens (above a certain age limit) in all the provinces of Canada had the right to vote, except for Quebec, Asians, and the First Nation people. [9, 7]

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">Quebec did not have universal suffrage until granted by the Godbout government in **1940**. The campaigns and petitions were mainly lead by Therese Casgrain and Henri Bourassa. They struggled against clergy and politicians to obtain the right to vote for women in provincial elections. [9,12]

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">The First Nation people were not allowed to vote until **1960**. [9]

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">//**Notable Dates in Canada (Summarized)**//
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">1916 - Manitoba becomes the first province where women have the right to vote in provincial elections. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">1918 - Women gain full voting rights in federal elections. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">1919 - Women gain the right to run for federal office. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">1940 - Quebec becomes the last province where women's right to vote is recognized. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">1947 - Racial exclusions against Chinese and Indo-Canadians lifted. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">1948 - Racial exclusions against Japanese Canadians lifted. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">1955 - Religious exclusions are removed from election laws. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">1960 - Right to vote is extended unconditionally to First Nations people. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">1960 - Right to vote in advance is extended to all electors willing to swear they would be absent on election day. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">1970- Voting age lowered from 21 to 18. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12px;">1982 - Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees all adult citizens the right to vote.

<span style="color: #a32424; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">//**Relation to Cla**////**ssical Liberalism**// <span style="color: #a32424; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The movement for universal suffrage supports the liberal views, as people become more aware of their own rights and freedoms. People come to believe that everyone should have an equal opportunity when it comes to deciding who and how their community and society should be run.

=<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">//References:// = <span style="display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 70%; text-align: left;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 70%; text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">INFORMATION: <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;"> [1] Author unknown. (February 2012) //Suffrage.// Wikimedia Foundations, INC. Retrieved on March 4 2012 from the Internet: []. <span style="display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 70%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[2] Author unknown. (January 2012) //Universal Suffrage//. Simple English Wikipedia. Retrieved on March 2 2012 from the Internet: []. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[3] Author unknown. (2012) //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">Universal Suffrage //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">. The Free Dictionary. Retrieved on March 2 2012 from the Internet: <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[4] Author unknown. (March 2012) //Universal Suffrage//. Wikimedia Foundations, INC. Retrieved on March 4 2012 from the Internet: [|//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_suffrage//] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[5] Baros-Johnson, Irene (2012) //Emily Stowe//. Retrieved on March 5, 2012 from Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography: [] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[6]Jackel, Susan (n.d) //Women’s Suffrage//. Retrieved on March 4, 2012 from The Canadian Encyclopedia: [] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[7]John Fielding, Matt Christison, Craig Harding, John Meston, Tom Smith, Doug Zook (2009) //Responding to Classical Liberalism: The Extension of Equality - Universal Suffrage.// Retrieved on March 5, 2012 from Perspectives on Ideology, page 157. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[8]Latimier, Camille (n.d) //Universal Suffrage//? Retrieved on March 2, 2012 from Inclusion Europe: [] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[9]Marianopolis College (2005) //History of Women Suffrage in Canada//. Retrieved on March 4, 2012 from the Internet: <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[10] New Zealand and History online (Jan, 2012) //New Zealand women and vote//. Retrieved on March 5, 2012 from the Internet: [] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[11] Princeton University. (2006) //Universal Suffrage//. Dictionary.com. Retrieved on March 2 2012 from the Internet: [] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[12] The Great Names of the French Canadian Community (n.d) //Therese Casgrain//. Retrieved March 5, 2012 from the Internet: [] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[13] Wikipedia (March 2012). //Universal Suffrage//. Retrieved on March 2, 2012 from the Internet: [] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[14] Wikipedia (March 2012) //Kate Sheppard.//Retrieved March 2, 2012 from the Internet: []

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">PICTURES:

<span style="display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 70%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[1] Alexander Turnbull Library (1894) //The Summit at Last//. Retrieved on March 5, 2012 from the Internet: [] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[2] Trinity Western University (n.d) //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">Flag of Canada //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">. Retrieved on March 5, 2012 from the Internet: <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[3] Wikipedia (2008) //Kate Sheppard//. Retrieved on March 2, 2012 from the Internet: <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[4] Simpson, Herbert E. (n.d) //Emily Stowe//. Retrieved on March 5, 2012 from the Laurier Library: [] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10px;">[5] Stoddart, Jennifer (n.d) //Therese Casgrain//. Retrieved on March 5, 2012 from The Canadian Encyclopaedia:[]

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