Who Gets to Vote: Widening the Franchise

The franchise, the right to vote, has expanded dramatically over two centuries, but at very different speeds. Many early electorates were limited by property, sex, race or religion. Property qualifications fell away during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. New Zealand, in 1893, became the first self-governing country to give women the vote in national elections; Britain gave some women the vote in 1918 and equal terms in 1928; France waited until 1944 and Switzerland until 1971 at the federal level.

Racial exclusions persisted in many places, such as for Aboriginal Australians until 1962 and for many Black Americans until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The voting age fell from 21 to 18 in many countries around 1970, and Austria lowered it to 16 for national elections in 2007. Debates continue about voting by prisoners, non-citizen residents, citizens abroad and younger people, showing the franchise is still contested.