Universal Suffrage
After a long history of agitation, women in New Zealand were granted the right to vote in 1893. Theoretically New Zealand now has universal suffrage - meaning everyone over the age of 18 has the right to vote- which is considered a basic element of democracy. However in 2010 the National government passed The Electoral (Disqualification of Convicted Prisoners) Amendment Bill which removed the right of sentenced prisoners to vote. The Attorney General says the new law is inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act. Section 12 of the Bill states that "every New Zealand citizen who is over the age of 18 years has the right to vote and stand in genuine periodic elections of members of the House of Representatives".
Read more about this topic: Electoral System Of New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the words universal and/or suffrage:
“Without doubt God is the universal moving force, but each being is moved according to the nature that God has given it.... He directs angels, man, animals, brute matter, in sum all created things, but each according to its nature, and man having been created free, he is freely led. This rule is truly the eternal law and in it we must believe.”
—Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821)
“... the most important effect of the suffrage is psychological. The permanent consciousness of power for effective action, the knowledge that their own thoughts have an equal chance with those of any other person ... this is what has always rendered the men of a free state so energetic, so acutely intelligent, so powerful.”
—Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842–1906)