Suffrage

The right of citizens to vote, their eligibility to vote, is one of the supporting pillars of representative democracy and is intended to ensure that the representative limited sovereignty of the people is preserved. The right to vote is one of the fundamental political rights. The right to vote is to be distinguished from it. The citizens entitled to vote are commonly referred to as voters, electorate or colloquially as electorate.

In Switzerland, the term "right to vote" is commonly used to refer to the right to participate in referendums and elections, which therefore also includes the right to vote and, by extension, the right to take the initiative. The citizens with the right to vote are also officially referred to as the people, or, somewhat less frequently, as the electorate.

History of the right to vote

The history of suffrage can be traced back to antiquity. In the Middle Ages, the precursors of modern suffrage can be found above all in the election of representatives to the Estates Assemblies. However, suffrage assumes little importance as an ordering technique. A continuous use of suffrage as a technique of appointing representatives is found only in England. In the 15th century, the active right to vote in England is legally concretized and at the same time tied to property. In the 19th century the parliamentary principle became more and more widespread. In the French Revolution from 1789 and in the German Revolution of 1848, all male citizens were entitled to vote. In North America, traces of universal suffrage can be found as early as the 17th century, but without gaining lasting significance. With American independence and the federal constitution that followed, universal male suffrage to the central federal bodies was enshrined in some states. However, the regulation of suffrage was long left to the individual states, which sometimes tied suffrage to income or race. The actual implementation of universal suffrage did not occur until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Democracy in Switzerland has a different origin from the consultative assemblies in monarchies. Here, since the Middle Ages, assemblies of all the men of a community have been held in which the authorities were elected and votes taken on substantive business. Such Landsgemeinden are attested since the early beginnings of the Confederation, in Uri since 1231, in Schwyz since 1294 and in Unterwalden since 1309. Access to the Landsgemeinde was open to all men of military age, regardless of their status.

Before the 20th century, the right to vote in monarchies was often linked to conditions such as class, property, education or tax payments (census suffrage), which reduced those entitled to vote to a small proportion of the total population. In most states, universal suffrage in particular had to be fought for against the authorities, who wanted to defend their privileges. Among the pioneers in the introduction of universal male suffrage were the USA (since 1830), France (1848) and the German Empire (1871).

Comprehensive suffrage became established in Europe primarily from 1918 onwards. Often at the same time, but in some countries only much later (for example Switzerland), the right to vote for women was added. The voting age was usually linked to the legal age of majority of a citizen, which was originally defined as 24 years, then for a long time as 21 years, and today often as 18 years. In Austria, the voting age was most recently lowered to 16, while the age of majority remained at 18.

Whereas for a long time the exercise of the right to vote was bound to personal appearance before the competent electoral commission, today in many countries various forms of absentee ballots (for voting before an electoral commission outside the voter's place of residence) and postal voting (sending the completed ballot paper by post) are also in use for travellers or citizens living abroad.

In the course of the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the practice of many states in the 21st century of excluding from the right to vote people who are under legal guardianship to take care of all their affairs (in Germany according to § 1896 BGB), which has already been abandoned in some cases and is still applied in others, has come under criticism.

Germany

See also: Electoral law in the individual German states until 1918

The elections to the Frankfurt National Assembly in 1848 were the first to be held in Germany under universal suffrage for men (see Federal Election Law (Frankfurt National Assembly)). Along with Switzerland and France, Germany is thus one of the first states in Europe to introduce universal suffrage, albeit only for a short time. Otto von Bismarck introduced universal suffrage (for men) in the North German Confederation in 1867 to weaken the liberals. Correctly, he assumed that the general population in the countryside would tend to vote conservative. In the long run, however, this mass suffrage strengthened the opposition Social Democracy. In the newly founded German Reich of 1871, there was male suffrage from the beginning.

In Prussia, the most important single state, different weighting was given according to the tax revenue of the individual (see three-class suffrage). Other German states also had discriminatory rules.

It should be noted that in 1871, 34% of the total German population was under 15 years of age (1933 24%, Federal Republic 1980 18%; Federal Republic 2017 13.5%). So a voting age of at least 25 excluded a large percentage of the population. Thus it came about that in 1871 de facto only just under 20% of the total population was allowed to vote.

After the end of the First World War, the Weimar Republic was proclaimed on 9 November 1918. On 19 January 1919, the election for the constituent National Assembly took place. This was the first time that women had the right to vote in Germany. At the same time, the active voting age was lowered to 20 years and universal and equal suffrage was introduced in all individual states. Furthermore, Germany became a parliamentary democracy at that time, as the Reichstag could (indirectly) have a say in the composition of the government.

After the establishment of the National Socialist one-party dictatorship, elections no longer had any political significance.

Jews lost the right to vote under the Reich Citizenship Act of September 15, 1935; they were not allowed to vote in the sham election of March 29, 1936 (even blank ballots were counted as votes for the NSDAP; the result was announced as 98.8% for Hitler or the NSDAP).

The principles for the election in the Federal Republic of Germany (since 1949) are listed in the Basic Law, details of the election are determined by the Federal Election Law.

• 1945: The age limit for the right to vote is raised from 20 to 21.
• 1970: An amendment to Article 38(II) of the Basic Law lowers the active voting age from 21 to 18 and the passive voting age to the age of majority; the 1972 Act Amending the Federal Election Law adopts these adjustments.
• 1974: The age of majority, and thus the age limit for the right to stand for election, is also lowered to 18 (in force from 1 January 1975).
• 1995: In Lower Saxony, the voting age for local elections is lowered to 16. Other federal states followed suit.
• 2009: Bremen lowers the voting age for state elections to 16. Brandenburg followed in 2011, Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein in 2013.

Austria

• 1848: Introduction of census suffrage.
• 1873: Imperial Council electoral reform in the Austrian half of the Monarchy (Kurienwahlrecht): The members of the Chamber of Deputies were elected on the basis of the census electoral law in four Kurien (aristocratic landowners, urban community, trade and commerce, rural communities). Only about 6 % of the male population aged 24 and over were entitled to vote; the minimum annual tax payment required varied from place to place and amounted to 10 gulden in Vienna, for example. In the landowner's curia, women "entitled to their own rights", i.e. women who represented themselves, were also entitled to vote.
• 1882: Taaffe's electoral law reform: the tax for participation in elections was reduced to 5 guilders.
• 1896: Baden electoral reform created an electoral class. (The 5th curia was the class of male voters aged 24 and over.) Members of the first 4 curia were allowed to vote again in the 5th curia, the number of mandates per electoral vote was unequally distributed between the curia.
• 1907: Beck'sche Wahlrechtsreform: Abolition of curia suffrage and introduction of universal male suffrage (active suffrage: 24 years; passive suffrage: 30 years).
• 1919: After the fall of Austria-Hungary and the law of 12 November 1918 on the form of state and government in German Austria, women also gained the right to vote.
• 1920: A separate electoral law was created for the election of the constituent National Assembly of German Austria on 16 February 1919. Transition to proportional representation, which was demanded above all by the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP).
• 1923: The active voting age is 20 years, the passive voting age 24 years.
• 1929: The reform of the Federal Constitution also includes a reform of the electoral law (popular election of the Federal President). The voting age is raised by one year for the right to vote. One can only be elected from the age of 29.
• 1933 to 1938: Ständestaat, parliament was dissolved and not reinstated
• 1938 to 1945: by the "Anschluss" a part of the German Reich
• 1945: With the re-foundation (re-establishment) of the Republic of Austria, the electoral law of 1929 also applies again. However, in the first free National Council election after the end of the Second World War on 25 November 1945, former National Socialists are excluded from the election (see also National Council election in Austria 1945).
• 1968: The voting age is lowered to 19 for active and 25 for passive members.
• In 1970 and 1992 the National Council Election Regulations (NRWO) were reformed.
• 2003: The minimum age (at that time 18 years active, 19 years passive) must have been reached only on election day (Federal Law Gazette I No. 90/2003). Previously, it had to have been reached already on 1 January of the year in which the cut-off date was.
• 2007: Reduction of the active voting age from 18 to 16 years, simplification of postal voting and voting abroad, extension of the electoral period from four to five years, reduction of the passive voting age from 19 to 18 years (Federal Law Gazette I No. 27/2007 and 28/2007). Until 2007, postal voting was only possible for Austrians living abroad.

Switzerland

In Switzerland's direct democracy, the right to vote and the right of initiative go hand in hand with the right to vote. Swiss voters have more political power than citizens in purely representative democracies.

In Switzerland, there are democratic traditions that go back before the French Revolution. In contrast to the post-revolutionary understanding of democracy as a natural right of all people, the Old Confederates regarded democracy as a privilege that was passed on to male descendants. Historical scholarship therefore distinguishes between modern and pre-modern democracy (Suter 2004). Pre-modern democracy in Swiss communes and cantons was an assembly democracy. All men of military age were allowed to take part in the Landsgemeinden, there were no restrictions according to class or wealth. Elections and votes were held there, and originally there was also judging. The first Landsgemeinden are attested in the 13th century. Eight cantons had a Landsgemeinde, which still exists today in the cantons of Glarus and Appenzell Innerrhoden. The Old Confederation was a confederation of states and not a state.

Universal male suffrage was introduced in the Helvetic Republic from 1798 to 1803, whose constitution incorporated the principles of the French Revolution. The Helvetic Republic was a unitary state with representative democracy according to French ideas. In the following mediation and restoration period, federalism and the old balance of power in the cantons were restored. When the federal state, which still exists today, was founded in 1848, universal male suffrage was reintroduced in Switzerland. The extension at the federal level to all adult residents with Swiss citizenship occurred with the adoption of the bill for federal voting and electoral rights for women on 7 February 1971, after it had been rejected in 1959. 621,109 (65.7%) votes in favour were received against 323,882 (34.3%) against, with a turnout of 57.7%. Switzerland is the only country apart from Liechtenstein where men have given women the right to vote in a referendum. At the cantonal level, Vaud was the first canton to introduce women's suffrage (1959), and the Landsgemeinde Canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden was the last to introduce it at the behest of the Federal Court (1990).

United Kingdom

In 1295, under Edward I, knights and burgesses were elected to Parliament in open elections for the first time. But even in the mother country of modern parliamentarism, for a long time only this small part of the totality of men was entitled to vote. Just as the origins of the federal German parliamentary system are derived from the English model, the origins of German electoral law are also partly to be found in England (see majority voting). However, universal (male) suffrage was introduced quite early in Germany, whereas in England large parts of the population were excluded for much longer (until the First World War) because of their financial situation. By 1918, about 52% of men were allowed to vote.

Greece

Since the end of the Middle Ages, the Greek peoples had lived within the Ottoman Empire with its absolutist structure. Through the Greek Revolution starting in 1821, a small part of the Greeks liberated themselves and adopted a provisional constitution (σύνταγμα) in the First National Assembly of Epidauros (A' Eθνοσυνέλευση Επιδαύρου). In the midst of the turmoil of war against the Turkish occupiers, the constitution was largely democratically revised at the Third National Assembly in 1827, and Ioannis Count Kapodistrias was appointed the first governor of the young state. Following the ideals of the two revolutions that led to the founding of the United States and the French Republic, and with an eye to the ancient political heritage, the Greek Constitution, unusually democratic and liberal for Europe at the time, regulated the division of state powers (into legislative, judicial and executive), and in particular the right of (male) citizens to vote. In addition, it defined who - even among foreigners - could obtain citizenship rights.

Two years later, on the basis of this constitution, the first democratic election of modern times was held in Hellas for the National Assembly, and thus, contrary to the ideas of the signatory powers England, France and Russia, the First Hellenic Republic was proclaimed and Ioannis Kapodistrias was confirmed in his office as governor. The judiciary was established, and for the legislative power the term βουλή was (again) introduced. It was not until the intervention of the signatory powers in 1832 and the installation of a (German) monarch that the constitution was suspended and absolutism restored. Under popular pressure, a constitution was finally reintroduced in 1844 (constitutional monarchy). In contrast, universal suffrage for men was not reintroduced until 20 years later.

Netherlands

In the Netherlands, the parliamentary principle had been enforced since about 1866. Those who could show certain "signs of prosperity and ability" were allowed to vote. According to the electoral law of 1896, this was about half of the adult males, and due to a change in the law in 1901 and increasing wealth, it was 68% in the elections of 1913. People voted by constituency.

In 1917, the constitution was amended and universal male suffrage (algemeen kiesrecht voor mannen) was introduced, at the same time as proportional representation. On 3 July 1918, elections were held for the first time under the new electoral law. Women's suffrage followed by simple amendment in 1919.

Ballot paper from the "3rd Reich", 1936

Restrictions

Historically and currently, there are many different restrictions on the right to vote, rules that ensure that residents of a country do not vote or are not allowed to vote. The restriction of the right to vote to men, which is nowadays often a part of history, as well as the restriction of voting to citizens only, are fundamental. Similarly, many states do not allow overseas voting. This means that nationals residing abroad are not allowed to vote.

A guiding principle in voting rights discussions is the notion that the voter should be "self-reliant." It is common to demand a minimum age. Discussions in this regard have often been guided by the respective age of majority, even if the development has not always run in parallel. Furthermore, people with certain (mental) disabilities are not considered independent, for example if they are under guardianship. Historically, active soldiers and originally even civil servants were also prohibited from voting or being elected.

Classical liberal and conservative thinkers understood by an independent voter not least those who had a certain independence through property or education. The right to vote was then linked to land ownership, a certain tax revenue, assets or educational qualifications. In the 19th century, some universities were able to appoint members of parliament.

Some states grant their citizens living abroad the full right to vote, others restrict it (see also: Right to vote in the country of origin).

Some systems refer to a person's behaviour when they exclude them from the right to vote. The exclusion may be the consequence of conduct worthy of punishment, or of conduct that is politically reprehensible in the narrower sense. Convicted offenders are then ineligible or prohibited from voting for the duration of the sentence or even beyond.