Introduction+us

The right to vote has been an important right through the ages. Ancient Athens saw the right given to adult male citizens. The right has been restricted in one form or another up to the present day.
==== The trend in the 19th and 20th centuries has been towards the elimination of restrictions on voting. The old property qualification has been reduced to a minimum in practically all countries. The residence requirement and the requirement to cast the vote in person are accepted as necessary by the electoral commissions of the various countries. The voting age varies around the world, but 18 years is now generally the required age for voting. The history of women's suffrage is a long one. After many years of struggle in many countries the right for women to vote is now well accepted. For more details on this follow this link to the History of Women's Suffrage. ====

The right to vote is now considered part of the basic human rights, as covered by the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.
==== Australians first achieved the right to vote in 1843. Before this, all members of the Government were directly appointed from England. However, only a little over 10 per cent of the male population owned enough land to gain the right to vote. By 1851 this figure had increased to 25 per cent. Women were not allowed to vote at all. All males over 21 received the right to vote in South Australia in 1856, with all other States following suit between 1856 and 1900. ==== ==== Australia's stand on the right to vote was impressive in that it was one of the first countries to give the right to vote to a broader section of society. Australia did not have a thousand-year-old landholding class system like Britain, and as a result there were less "vested interests" trying to limit the right to vote. In the nineteenth century almost all Australians were convicts, ex-convicts, descended from convicts, or settlers. None of these people would have had very much money when they came from England. Australia was a far more a working-class country than England or America. Even the factory owner of the 1870s was probably a factory worker in the 1850s. The result was fewer class differences, because of this lack of class distinction and the establishment of the egalitarian "myth", as portrayed in the poems of Lawson. ==== ==== Australia also has an impressive record when it comes to giving women the vote. South Australia was the second place in the world to do this, in 1894; New Zealand had been the first. All Australian women received the right to vote in 1902. Thus we were one of the first countries in the world to have "universal suffrage", i.e. a system where everyone was entitled to vote, unless they were Aboriginal, in some states. This was not addressed until the 1960s. ====