Universal suffrage is the principle that all adult citizens should have the right to vote, regardless of property, sex, race, or other status. New Zealand became the first self-governing country to grant it to women in national elections.
Facts
Origin YearNew Zealand's 1893 Electoral Act is the first instance of a self-governing country giving all adult women the vote nationally without a property qualification; other countries and groups reached universal suffrage at later dates. Founding ContextExtended gradually from property-restricted male voting across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; New Zealand became the first self-governing country to grant women the vote in 1893, and universal adult suffrage without regard to race became a defining late-twentieth-century achievement, most prominently with the end of apartheid disenfranchisement in South Africa in 1994. 1 Connections
Advocated By
Chartism, Movements Chartism's People's Charter of 1838 demanded universal male suffrage.
Source Chartism, British History (Britannica)
Source Emmeline Pankhurst (Britannica)
Source Women's Suffrage (Britannica)
Influenced By
Levellers, Movements Their demand for manhood suffrage in the Agreement of the People is treated by historians as an early articulation of the principle later generations called universal suffrage.
Source Leveler, English History (Britannica)
Practiced By
Source Universal suffrage (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Women's Suffrage (Britannica)
Encyclopaedia BritannicaOverview / lead section, third paragraph (national enfranchisement by country)Quote, Overview / lead section, third paragraph (national enfranchisement by country)
By the early years of the 20th century, women had won the right to vote in national elections in New Zealand (1893), Australia (1902), Finland (1906), and Norway (1913).
Universal suffrage (Wikipedia)
Practiced By: Finland, Article text
In 1906, 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
In Group: Franchise, Districting and Electoral Effects, Lead paragraph
Universal suffrage or universal franchise refers to the right to vote being available for all adults within a jurisdiction.
View the SourceLeveler, English History (Britannica)
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