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( Universal suffrage)
Universal suffrage (also universal adult suffrage, general suffrage or common suffrage) consists of the extension of the right to vote to all adults, without distinction as to race, sex, belief, intelligence, or economic or social status. It may seem like a minor point to add that suffrage applies only to citizens; for example, citizens of France do not necessarily have the right to vote in Germany. Although the relationship to citizenship may seem obvious, it is not such a minor point, because there are countries in the world that deny citizenship to their own residents based on race, belief, or class. Thus, some claims of universal suffrage may be technically or legally true but practically false. In the first modern democracies only a limited number of people had a say in the running of the government - for example in the United Kingdom only Protestant, male landowners with relatively large holdings had the right to vote. Suffrage depended on local custom before 1832, so there were exceptions. In all modern democracies the number of people who could vote increased gradually with time. The 19th century featured movements advocating universal male suffrage - the extension to all males regardless of social standing or race. The democratic movement of the late 19th century, unifying Liberals and Social Democrats, particularly in northern Europe, used the slogan Equal and Common Suffrage. The Movement for Universal Suffrage consisted of a social, economic and political movement aimed at extending suffrage to people of all races. The first movements toward universal suffrage (or manhood suffrage) occurred in the early 19th century, and focused on removing property requirements for voting. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the focus of universal suffrage movement became the removal of restrictions against women having the right to vote.
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