OMOV
Encyclopedia
"One man, one vote" is a slogan that has been used in many parts of the world where campaigns have arisen for universal suffrage
. It became particularly prevalent in less developed countries, during the period of decolonisation and the struggles for national sovereignty from the late 1940s onwards. It was used in this form in an important legal case in the United States
, the United States Supreme Court majority opinion of Reynolds v. Sims
, issued in 1964.
. The entitlement to vote for the Members of Parliament
representing the constituencies varied widely, with different qualifications such as owning property of a certain value, holding an apprenticeship, qualifying for paying the local-government rates, or holding a degree from the university in question. Those who qualified for the vote in more than one constituency were entitled to vote in each constituency, whilst many adults did not qualify for the vote at all. Plural voting
was also present in local government, whereby the owners of business property qualified for votes in the relevant wards.
Over time reformers argued that Members of Parliament and other elected officials should represent citizens equally, and that each voter should only be entitled to exercise the vote once in an election. Successive Reform Act
s both extended the franchise eventually to almost all adult citizens (barring convicts, lunatics and members of the House of Lords
) and also reduced and finally eliminated most of the plural voting by 1950 for both Westminster and local-government elections. However there were two significant exceptions.
The City of London
had never expanded its boundaries and with many residential dwellings being replaced by businesses and the impact of The Blitz
there were barely five thousand residents in the entirety of the country's financial district after the Second World War
. The system of plural voting was retained for electing the City of London Corporation with some modifications.
came into being, it adopted the same political system which was in place at that time for the Westminster Parliament and British local government. However, the Parliament of Northern Ireland
did not follow Westminster in changes to the franchise, with the result that into the 1960s property plural voting still existed for both Parliament and local government. There has been much debate as to what extent the franchise for local government contributed to unionist
electoral success in controlling councils in nationalist
majority areas. When the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
came into being in 1967, it had five primary demands. An additional demand which became just as important was that every citizen in Northern Ireland be afforded the same number of votes for elections. The slogan "one man, one vote" became a rallying cry for the campaign.
Along with four of the five primary demands, the voting system was updated by the Parliament of Northern Ireland and came into effect for the next election which, strikingly, took place after the suspension of the Northern Ireland government.
for the purpose of assuring a fair distribution of seats
in the US House of Representatives, and this has generally occurred without incident, with the exception of the 1920 Census
. However, once the practice developed of electing said representatives from districts drawn from within the state, rather than electing them at-large
, the question arose as to whether or not the state legislature (which had responsibility for drawing these congressional districts) was required to see that said districts were equal in population. Some states redrew their US House districts every ten years; many did not. Some never redrew them, except when it was mandated by a change in the number of seats to which that state was entitled in the House of Representatives. This led to a disproportionality in the influence of voters across the states. For example, if the 2nd congressional district eventually had a population of 1.5 million, but the 3rd had only 500,000, then, in effect—since each district elected the same number of congressmen—a voter in the 3rd district had three times the voting "power" of a 2nd-district voter.
Additionally, in most US states, electoral districts for seats in the upper house
or Senate were ostensibly created at least partially on the basis of geography, rather than population. Whereas lower house seats might or might not be reapportioned on a decennial basis, such as those of the US House of Representatives, in most states, state senate district boundaries were never redrawn. As the United States became more urban, this led to the dilution of the votes of urban voters when casting ballots for state senate seats. A city dweller's vote had less influence on the make-up of the state legislature than did a rural inhabitant's.
in the 1960s, notably Wesberry v. Sanders
, Reynolds v. Sims
and Baker v. Carr
, the court ruled that districts for the United States House of Representatives
and for the legislative districts of both houses of state legislatures had to contain roughly equal populations. (The US Senate was not affected by these rulings, as its makeup was explicitly established in the US Constitution.) The cases concerning malapportionment ended the pattern of gross rural overrepresentation and urban underrepresentation in the US House and state legislatures. Eventually the rulings were extended over local (city) districts as well, as in Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris
.
Universal suffrage
Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...
. It became particularly prevalent in less developed countries, during the period of decolonisation and the struggles for national sovereignty from the late 1940s onwards. It was used in this form in an important legal case in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the United States Supreme Court majority opinion of Reynolds v. Sims
Reynolds v. Sims
Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 was a United States Supreme Court case that ruled that state legislature districts had to be roughly equal in population.-Facts:...
, issued in 1964.
United Kingdom
This phrase was traditionally used in the context of demands for suffrage reform. Historically the emphasis within the House of Commons was on representing areas: counties, boroughs and, later on, universitiesUniversity constituency
A university constituency is a constituency, used in elections to a legislature, that represents a university rather than a geographical area. University constituencies may involve plural voting, in which eligible voters are permitted to vote in both a university constituency and a geographical...
. The entitlement to vote for the Members of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
representing the constituencies varied widely, with different qualifications such as owning property of a certain value, holding an apprenticeship, qualifying for paying the local-government rates, or holding a degree from the university in question. Those who qualified for the vote in more than one constituency were entitled to vote in each constituency, whilst many adults did not qualify for the vote at all. Plural voting
Plural voting
Plural voting is the practice whereby one person might be able to vote multiple times in an election. It is not to be confused with a plurality voting system which does not necessarily involve plural voting...
was also present in local government, whereby the owners of business property qualified for votes in the relevant wards.
Over time reformers argued that Members of Parliament and other elected officials should represent citizens equally, and that each voter should only be entitled to exercise the vote once in an election. Successive Reform Act
Reform Act
In the United Kingdom, Reform Act is a generic term used for legislation concerning electoral matters. It is most commonly used for laws passed to enfranchise new groups of voters and to redistribute seats in the British House of Commons...
s both extended the franchise eventually to almost all adult citizens (barring convicts, lunatics and members of the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
) and also reduced and finally eliminated most of the plural voting by 1950 for both Westminster and local-government elections. However there were two significant exceptions.
The City of London
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
had never expanded its boundaries and with many residential dwellings being replaced by businesses and the impact of The Blitz
The Blitz
The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...
there were barely five thousand residents in the entirety of the country's financial district after the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The system of plural voting was retained for electing the City of London Corporation with some modifications.
Northern Ireland
When Northern IrelandNorthern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
came into being, it adopted the same political system which was in place at that time for the Westminster Parliament and British local government. However, the Parliament of Northern Ireland
Parliament of Northern Ireland
The Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended...
did not follow Westminster in changes to the franchise, with the result that into the 1960s property plural voting still existed for both Parliament and local government. There has been much debate as to what extent the franchise for local government contributed to unionist
Unionism in Ireland
Unionism in Ireland is an ideology that favours the continuation of some form of political union between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain...
electoral success in controlling councils in nationalist
Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...
majority areas. When the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was an organisation which campaigned for equal civil rights for the all the people in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 1970s...
came into being in 1967, it had five primary demands. An additional demand which became just as important was that every citizen in Northern Ireland be afforded the same number of votes for elections. The slogan "one man, one vote" became a rallying cry for the campaign.
Along with four of the five primary demands, the voting system was updated by the Parliament of Northern Ireland and came into effect for the next election which, strikingly, took place after the suspension of the Northern Ireland government.
Historical background
The US Constitution requires a decennial censusUnited States Census
The United States Census is a decennial census mandated by the United States Constitution. The population is enumerated every 10 years and the results are used to allocate Congressional seats , electoral votes, and government program funding. The United States Census Bureau The United States Census...
for the purpose of assuring a fair distribution of seats
Apportionment (politics)
Apportionment is the process of allocating political power among a set of principles . In most representative governments, political power has most recently been apportioned among constituencies based on population, but there is a long history of different approaches.The United States Constitution,...
in the US House of Representatives, and this has generally occurred without incident, with the exception of the 1920 Census
Reapportionment Act of 1929
The Reapportionment Act of 1929 was a combined census and reapportionment bill passed by the United States Congress that established a permanent method for apportioning a constant 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives according to each census...
. However, once the practice developed of electing said representatives from districts drawn from within the state, rather than electing them at-large
At-Large
At-large is a designation for representative members of a governing body who are elected or appointed to represent the whole membership of the body , rather than a subset of that membership...
, the question arose as to whether or not the state legislature (which had responsibility for drawing these congressional districts) was required to see that said districts were equal in population. Some states redrew their US House districts every ten years; many did not. Some never redrew them, except when it was mandated by a change in the number of seats to which that state was entitled in the House of Representatives. This led to a disproportionality in the influence of voters across the states. For example, if the 2nd congressional district eventually had a population of 1.5 million, but the 3rd had only 500,000, then, in effect—since each district elected the same number of congressmen—a voter in the 3rd district had three times the voting "power" of a 2nd-district voter.
Additionally, in most US states, electoral districts for seats in the upper house
Upper house
An upper house, often called a senate, is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the lower house; a legislature composed of only one house is described as unicameral.- Possible specific characteristics :...
or Senate were ostensibly created at least partially on the basis of geography, rather than population. Whereas lower house seats might or might not be reapportioned on a decennial basis, such as those of the US House of Representatives, in most states, state senate district boundaries were never redrawn. As the United States became more urban, this led to the dilution of the votes of urban voters when casting ballots for state senate seats. A city dweller's vote had less influence on the make-up of the state legislature than did a rural inhabitant's.
Warren Court decisions
In various reapportionment cases decided by the Supreme CourtSupreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
in the 1960s, notably Wesberry v. Sanders
Wesberry v. Sanders
Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 was a U.S. Supreme Court case involving U.S. Congressional districts in the state of Georgia. The Court issued its ruling on February 17, 1964. This decision requires each state to draw its U.S...
, Reynolds v. Sims
Reynolds v. Sims
Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 was a United States Supreme Court case that ruled that state legislature districts had to be roughly equal in population.-Facts:...
and Baker v. Carr
Baker v. Carr
Baker v. Carr, , was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that retreated from the Court's political question doctrine, deciding that redistricting issues present justiciable questions, thus enabling federal courts to intervene in and to decide reapportionment cases...
, the court ruled that districts for the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
and for the legislative districts of both houses of state legislatures had to contain roughly equal populations. (The US Senate was not affected by these rulings, as its makeup was explicitly established in the US Constitution.) The cases concerning malapportionment ended the pattern of gross rural overrepresentation and urban underrepresentation in the US House and state legislatures. Eventually the rulings were extended over local (city) districts as well, as in Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris
Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris
Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris, 489 U.S. 688 , was a case argued before the United States Supreme Court regarding the structure of the New York City Board of Estimate....
.
Other uses
- In Alaska, when instant runoff voting (IRV) was being proposed, League of Women VotersLeague of Women VotersThe League of Women Voters is an American political organization founded in 1920 by Carrie Chapman Catt during the last meeting of the National American Woman Suffrage Association approximately six months before the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution gave women the right to vote...
President Cheryl Jebe said, "It appears to compromise the well-established principle of one person, one vote, established by the United States Supreme Court." And Jebe's statement was essentially accurate because some voters get more than one opportunity to vote for their candidate of choice, while others do not.
- The Electoral College effectively alters the power of votes, so that in states where the winner is a foregone conclusion, voting has little impact, while in swing stateSwing stateIn United States presidential politics, a swing state is a state in which no single candidate or party has overwhelming support in securing that state's electoral college votes...
s, a handful of votes can decide the entire set of electoral votes. One vote, one person is a common rallying cry against this departure from that principle.
- The courts have found that special districts known as private governments (governments created by and for a limited group of persons such as landowners) are valid based on the one man one vote rule .