ABSTRACT

Political philosophers and legal theorists working on the concept of discrimination ever mention the sphere of electoral politics. This chapter distinguishes between three key political actors in representative democracies such as voters, political parties and candidates. The right to vote, also called suffrage or the franchise, is a political right and a central element of democratic political systems. The clear-cut case of legal, direct and explicit discrimination against citizens qua voters is the history of women's suffrage. Legal provisions can also implicitly deny the franchise to certain groups of citizens. John Stuart Mill famously argued in favor of 'plural voting': everyone should have the right to vote but the votes of educated citizens should have more weight. A difficult case concerns ethnic party bans in countries where there is no clear ethnic majority. The cases of legal and direct discrimination concern countries where certain categories of citizens are not allowed to run for office because of their ascriptive group identities.