Political Changes
The size of the electorate tripled from the 7.7 million who had been entitled to in 1912 to 21.4 million by the end of 1918. Women now accounted for about 43% of the electorate. It is worth noting that had women been enfranchised based upon the same requirements as men, they would have been in the majority because of the loss of men in the war. This may explain why the age of 30 was settled on.
In addition to the suffrage changes, the Act also instituted the present system of holding general elections on one day, as opposed to being staggered over a period of weeks, and brought in the annual electoral register.
Read more about this topic: Representation Of The People Act 1918
Famous quotes containing the word political:
“The general review of the past tends to satisfy me with my political life. No man, I suppose, ever came up to his ideal. The first half [of] my political life was first to resist the increase of slavery and secondly to destroy it.... The second half of my political life has been to rebuild, and to get rid of the despotic and corrupting tendencies and the animosities of the war, and other legacies of slavery.”
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