Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums. In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to vote is called active suffrage, as distinct from passive suffrage, which is the right to stand for election. The combination of active and passive suffrage is sometimes called full suffrage.
Disfranchisement, also called disenfranchisement, or voter disqualification is the restriction of suffrage of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing a person exercising the right to vote. Disfranchisement can also refer to the revocation of power or control of a particular individual, community or being to the natural amenity they have; that is to deprive of a franchise, of a legal right, of some privilege or inherent immunity. Disfranchisement may be accomplished explicitly by law or implicitly through requirements applied in a discriminatory fashion, through intimidation, or by placing unreasonable requirements on voters for registration or voting. High barriers to entry to the political competition can disenfranchise political movements.
Australian constitutional law is the area of the law of Australia relating to the interpretation and application of the Constitution of Australia. Several major doctrines of Australian constitutional law have developed.
The Constitution Alteration (Aviation) Bill 1936, was an unsuccessful proposal to alter the Australian Constitution to extend the Commonwealth legislative power in respect to air navigation and aircraft. It was put to voters for approval in a referendum held on 6 March 1937.
The Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902(Cth) was an Act of the Parliament of Australia which set out who was entitled to vote in Australian federal elections. The Act established, in time for the 1903 Australian federal election, suffrage for federal elections for those who were British subjects over 21 years of age who had lived in Australia for six months. However, consistent with the White Australia policy, the Act excluded natives of Australia, Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands (other than New Zealand) from the federal franchise, unless they were already enrolled to vote in an Australian state. The Act gave Australian women the right to vote and stand for parliament at the federal level unless they fell into one of the categories of people excluded from the franchise.
In Australian constitutional law, Chapter III Courts are courts of law which are a part of the Australian federal judiciary and thus are able to discharge Commonwealth judicial power. They are so named because the prescribed features of these courts are contained in Chapter III of the Australian Constitution.
R v Burgess; Ex parte Henry, is a High Court of Australia case where the majority took a broad view of the external affairs power in the Constitution but held that the interstate trade and commerce power delineated trade and commerce within a state, rejecting an argument that the power extended to activities that were commingled with interstate activities. The court set aside a conviction for breach of the regulations as they went further than was necessary to carry out and give effect to the convention.
R v Licensing Court of Brisbane; Ex parte Daniell is a High Court of Australia case about inconsistency between Commonwealth and State legislation, which is dealt with by s 109 of the Australian Constitution. It is the leading example of what is known as the impossibility of simultaneous obedience test.
King v Jones was an Australian court case decided in the High Court of Australia on 1 September 1972. It concerned section 41 of the Australian Constitution, and whether that section gave a person who had the right to vote in elections in South Australia the right to vote in elections at a federal level. The main issue in the case was the meaning of the words "adult person" in section 41. The court decided that those words only applied to people who had attained the age of 21. A more significant issue, whether section 41 is a guarantee or a transitional provision, was considered briefly in this case.
R v Pearson; Ex parte Sipka, was a landmark Australian court case decided in the High Court of Australia on 24 February 1983. It concerned section 41 of the Australian Constitution, and the question of whether four people eligible to vote in New South Wales could be prevented from voting at the federal level by a federal law which closed registration to vote on the day that the writs of election were issued. The court decided that they could, adopting a narrow interpretation of section 41, and therefore finding that there is no express constitutional right to vote in Australia.
Suffrage, the right to vote, is often extended to non-citizens. This right varies widely by place in terms of which non-citizens are allowed to vote and in which elections, though there has been a trend over the last 30 years to enfranchise more non-citizens, especially in Europe.
The voting rights of Indigenous Australians became an issue from the mid-19th century, when responsible government was being granted to Britain's Australian colonies, and suffrage qualifications were being debated. The resolution of universal rights progressed into the mid-20th century.
The Court of Disputed Returns in Australia is a special jurisdiction of the High Court of Australia. The High Court, sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns, hears challenges regarding the validity of federal elections. The jurisdiction is twofold: (1) on a petition to the Court by an individual with a relevant interest or by the Australian Electoral Commission, or (2) on a reference by either house of the Commonwealth Parliament. This jurisdiction was initially established by Part XVI of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1902 and is now contained in Part XXII of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. Challenges regarding the validity of State elections are heard by the Supreme Court of that State as the State's Court of Disputed Returns.
Black suffrage refers to black people's right to vote and has long been an issue in countries established under conditions of black minorities.
Rowe v Electoral Commissioner is a High Court of Australia case dealing with the requirement of the Australian Constitution that members of Parliament be "directly chosen by the people". The High Court held that Commonwealth legislation that sought to restrict the time in which a person may seek to enroll in an election or alter their enrolment details after the writs for an election have been issued was invalid.
Women's suffrage in Australia was one of the early achievements of Australian democracy. Following the progressive establishment of male suffrage in the Australian colonies from the 1840s to the 1890s, an organised push for women's enfranchisement gathered momentum from the 1880s, and began to be legislated from the 1890s, decades in advance of Europe and North America. South Australian women achieved the right to vote in 1894, and to stand for office in 1895 following the world first Constitutional Amendment Act 1894. This preceded even male suffrage in Tasmania. Western Australia granted women the right to vote from 1899, although with some racial restrictions. In 1902, the newly established Australian Parliament passed the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902, which set a uniform law enabling women to vote at federal elections and to stand for the federal parliament. By 1908, the remaining Australian states had legislated for women's suffrage for state elections. Grace Benny was elected as the first councillor in 1919, Edith Cowan the first state Parliamentarian in 1921, Dorothy Tangney the first Senator and Enid Lyons the first Member of the House of Representatives in 1943.
Suffrage in Australia refers to the right to vote for people living in Australia, including all its six component states and territories, as well as local councils. The colonies of Australia began to grant universal male suffrage from 1856, with women's suffrage following between the 1890s and 1900s. Some jurisdictions introduced racial restrictions on voting from 1885. Such restrictions had been eradicated by the 1960s. Today, the right to vote at federal, state and local levels of government is enjoyed by citizens of Australia over the age of 18 years.
Section 25 of the Constitution of Australia is a provision of the Constitution of Australia headed "Provision as to races disqualified from voting" and providing that "For the purposes of the last section, if by the law of any State all persons of any race are disqualified from voting at elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of the State, then, in reckoning the number of the people of the State or of the Commonwealth, persons of that race resident in that State shall not be counted."
Section 24 of the Constitution of Australia is titled "Constitution of House of Representatives". It provides that the House of Representatives be "directly chosen by the people of the Commonwealth" and have twice as many seats as the Senate. It also provides a formula for the number of seats in each state, subject to later amendment by the parliament, and guarantees at least five members for each original state.
McGinty v Western Australia, was a significant case decided in the High Court of Australia in 1996. The plaintiffs sought to enshrine the principle of ‘one vote one value’ in the Australian Constitution, and has had a significant impact on how the High Court approaches matters of the franchise, as well as malapportionment. The plaintiff's submissions were unanimously rejected by the court, who found that the interpretation of sections 7 and 24 of the Australian Constitution did not require that all votes hold the same value. The High Court exercised its original jurisdiction in hearing the matter, meaning that the case did not need to proceed as an appeal from the Supreme Court of Western Australia.
The full text of Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act at Wikisource