From Chartists to Article 21: Universal Suffrage

For most of history, the vote was restricted not only by sex and race but also by wealth. In Britain, the 1832 Reform Act still left most men without a vote, and in 1838 working-class campaigners called Chartists issued the People's Charter with six demands: votes for all men over 21, a secret ballot, no property qualification for MPs, payment of MPs, equal constituencies and annual Parliaments. Huge petitions in 1839, 1842 and 1848 were rejected, and the movement faded, yet all but annual Parliaments later became law.

The secret ballot, introduced in Britain in 1872, protected voters from bribery and intimidation by employers and landlords. Across Europe and the Americas, property tests, literacy tests and poll taxes were gradually abolished during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In 1948, UDHR Article 21 declared that the will of the people shall be expressed in periodic elections by universal and equal suffrage and secret vote, turning a long struggle into an international standard.