CHECK IT OUT:The history behind the right to vote

Universal suffrage. Sounds awful, doesn’t it?

Of course, we know that it doesn’t mean that everyone is suffering and miserable. It means that anyone who attains his/her majority (usually age 18 or 21) has the right to vote.

This was not always the case. In fact, all white men were not given the right until the 19th century. It seems our founding fathers took a dim view of the average citizen.

Originally, voting was only extended to men who owned property. In fact, New Jersey made a big “mistake” and accorded the right to vote to people with property in 1776. This meant that some women and blacks in the state could vote. The legislators caught their error and rescinded it in 1807.

It is also interesting to note that increased voter inclusion resulted from our engagement in wars. It wasn’t until after the War of 1812 that men who served in the army began to argue that since they were required to fight, they deserved the right to vote. This was the beginning of the gradual removal of voting rights based on property. Still, this was only for white men. But after the Civil War, the 15th Amendment denied states the right to restrict voting based on race. And once again, it was mainly because black soldiers had bravely fought and died in the conflict.

This does not mean, of course, that blacks actually voted. Up until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, many states (mainly Southern) denied the vote to blacks, using poll taxes, literacy requirements, etc., to prevent them from registering.

Yet again, a large part of the pressure to secure the right for black Americans was their service in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. This was also the justification for lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. The 26th Amendment was signed by the president in 1971.

Of course, at this point we have not accounted for more than half the population being denied the right to vote. One of the hottest issues of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was women’s suffrage.

It took another amendment, the 19th, ratified in 1920, to give the distaff side the ballot.

That is in the United States, of course. Worldwide, there are still countries that restrict women’s right to vote. In Lebanon, for instance, all men can vote, but women must prove they have an elementary education.

Women cannot vote at all in Saudi Arabia, and no one can vote in the United Arab Emirates — they are not democracies.

Residents of U.S. territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, etc.) are U.S. citizens who do not have a voting member in Congress and cannot vote in presidential elections.

Many countries, mainly in Central and South America, prohibit members of the police or military from voting. And in Bhutan, it isn’t one person, one vote — it is one family, one vote.

Voting: a right or a duty? This question is often debated at election time.

In the United States, it is a right. In Australia, it is a duty, and voting is compulsory. The fine for not voting “down under” is $75. In the last national elections, 96.2% of Australian voters voted. In the United States, in a hotly contested election, the turnout was only 64.8%.

In his book, “The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States,” Duke University professor Alex Keyssar points out the irony that in our society we are such sticklers for accuracy in sports that we put an asterisk beside Roger Maris’ name in the records because “The Babe” batted in fewer games, yet we don’t put an asterisk beside all election tallies before 1965, when fewer people were allowed to express their opinion.