right to vote
Franchise at polls
The right to vote is the legal entitlement to participate in elections, choosing representatives or deciding public questions.
Also called suffrage or the franchise.
Historically restricted by property, race, and sex, voting rights expanded through struggle: The Nineteenth Amendment secured women's right to vote.
Debates continue over voter ID laws, felony disenfranchisement, and access to polling places.
- secret ballotConfidential electoral choice
- ballot boxContainer for cast votes
- 19th amendmentGranted women voting rights
- enfranchisementGranting citizenship rights
- civil rights movementOrganized effort against discrimination
citizenship · civic duty · grassroots activism · voter turnout · direct election · gerrymandering · voter ID laws · proportional representation · abolitionism · freedom of speech · booth · polling · constitutional amendment · march · ranked-choice voting · registration · election · amendment
- civil rightsequal protection, equal rights, Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, civil liberties
- Canadian rightsequality rights, legal rights, civil liberties, language rights, free expression
- Charter Rightsfundamental freedoms, legal rights, equality rights, democratic rights, language rights
- legal rightslegal rights, constitutional rights, fundamental rights, Miranda rights, Bill of Rights
- Suffragesuffragette, suffragettes, votes for women, suffragists, suffragist
- democracyvoting, election, elections, ballot, ballots
right to votedisenfranchisement
Removal of voting rights
voter suppression · disfranchisement · poll taxes · literacy tests · Jim Crow laws
right to voteautocracy
Rule by one
dictatorship · absolute monarchy · tyranny · despotism · oligarchy