census suffrage
- noun
- /ˈsɛn.səs ˈsʌf.rɪdʒ/
- Archaic
:
sufragio censitario
- Under census suffrage, wealthy citizens exerted far greater influence over election outcomes.
Examples
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The reform movement campaigned to replace census suffrage with universal suffrage.
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Many 19th-century European countries used systems of census suffrage before adopting more democratic voting rights.
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What is census suffrage?
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The idea of census suffrage is outdated.
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In the 19th century, many governments employed census suffrage to limit voting rights based on wealth and social status.
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Activists fought for decades to eliminate census suffrage and achieve equal voting rights for all citizens.
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During the era of census suffrage, only those with considerable income were allowed to vote, which marginalized the poor.
Synonyms
A voting system where only people who pay enough taxes or own property can vote
How Unequal
1
6.6
- Archaic
- Specialized
19
7.6
1
5.1
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines two literal nouns where 'census' (official population count) modifies 'suffrage' (the right to vote), so a learner who knows both words can infer it refers to a voting system determined by census-related criteria (e.g., rights or vote weight tied to status or population data). This is a regular noun–noun compositional pattern found across languages and thus readily understandable without special idiomatic knowledge.
Etymology
Census suffrage comes from the old practice of using the census, a list of people and their wealth or social rank, to decide who could vote and how much weight each person's vote had. So, census suffrage means a voting system where a person's 'vote' counts more or less depending on their rank or wealth.