Summary
Universal suffrage requires that the broadest reasonable pool of voters is guaranteed participatory rights.
Obligations
Criteria
- Voting operations facilitated broad participation
- Vote counting and tabulation processes protected the right to be elected
- Limitations on universal suffrage imposed during the voter registration process were reasonable and objective
- Voter registration promoted broad participation, and there were no barriers to participation by otherwise qualified eligible voters
- Voter registration promoted universal suffrage
Quotes
- The right to vote is not a privilege. In the twenty-first century, the presumption in a democratic State must be in favour of inclusion, as may be illustrated, for example, by the parliamentary history of the United Kingdom and other countries where the franchise was gradually extended over the centuries from select individuals, elite groupings or sections of the population approved of by those in power. Universal suffrage has become the basic principle (see Mathieu-Mohin and Clerfayt, cited above, p. 23, ยง 51, citing X v. Germany, no. 2728/66, Commission decision of 6 October 1967, Collection 25, pp. 38-41).
- People meeting the requirements on age and who have lived in the country as de facto citizens for a substantial number of years, should be given the opportunity to obtain citizenship [and, thus, be given voting rights].
- Universal suffrage requires that the broadest reasonable pool of voters be guaranteed participatory rights.
- Universal suffrage means in principle that all human beings have the right to vote and to stand for election. This right may, however, and indeed should, be subject to certain conditions.