suffrage

71:2.54. Dan­ger of uni­ver­sal suf­frage in the hands of un­e­d­u­cated and in­do­lent ma­jori­ties.

71:2.8The mea­sure of the ad­vance of so­ci­ety is di­rectly de­ter­mined by the de­gree to which pub­lic opin­ion can con­trol per­sonal be­hav­ior and state reg­u­la­tion through non­vi­o­lent ex­pres­sion. The re­ally civ­i­lized gov­ern­ment had ar­rived when pub­lic opin­ion was clothed with the pow­ers of per­sonal fran­chise. Pop­u­lar elec­tions may not al­ways de­cide things rightly, but they rep­re­sent the right way even to do a wrong thing. Evo­lu­tion does not at once pro­duce su­perla­tive per­fec­tion but rather com­par­a­tive and ad­vanc­ing prac­ti­cal ad­just­ment.

• conferred at 20

72:3.7Chil­dren re­main legally sub­ject to their par­ents un­til they are fif­teen, when the first ini­ti­a­tion into civic re­spon­si­bil­ity is held. There­after, ev­ery five years for five suc­ces­sive pe­ri­ods sim­i­lar pub­lic ex­er­cises are held for such age groups at which their obli­ga­tions to par­ents are less­ened, while new civic and so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to the state are as­sumed. Suf­frage is con­ferred at twenty, the right to marry with­out pa­ren­tal con­sent is not be­stowed un­til twenty-five, and chil­dren must leave home on reach­ing the age of thirty.

• additional votes conferred

72:9.32. Upon nom­i­na­tion by the state gov­er­nors or by the re­gional ex­ec­u­tives and by the man­date of the re­gional su­preme coun­cils, in­di­vid­u­als who have ren­dered great ser­vice to so­ci­ety, or who have demon­strated ex­traor­di­nary wis­dom in gov­ern­ment ser­vice, may have ad­di­tional votes con­ferred upon them not of­tener than ev­ery five years and not to ex­ceed nine such super­fran­chises. The max­i­mum suf­frage of any mul­ti­ple voter is ten. Sci­en­tists, in­ven­tors, teach­ers, philoso­phers, and spir­i­tual lead­ers are also thus rec­og­nized and hon­ored with aug­mented po­lit­i­cal power. These ad­vanced civic priv­i­leges are con­ferred by the state and re­gional su­preme coun­cils much as de­grees are be­stowed by the spe­cial col­leges, and the re­cip­i­ents are proud to at­tach the sym­bols of such civic rec­og­ni­tion, along with their other de­grees, to their lists of per­sonal achieve­ments.

• defective, idle, indifferent, or criminal individuals disenfranchised
• government employees disenfranchised

72:9.43. All in­di­vid­u­als sen­tenced to com­pul­sory la­bor in the mines and all gov­ern­men­tal ser­vants sup­ported by tax funds are, for the pe­ri­ods of such ser­vices, dis­en­fran­chised. This does not ap­ply to aged per­sons who may be re­tired on pen­sions at sixty-five.

• compulsory; exercised by social groups

72:9.7Thus, ex­cept in the elec­tion of the chief ex­ec­u­tive, suf­frage is ex­er­cised by eco­nomic, pro­fes­sional, in­tel­lec­tual, and so­cial group­ings of the cit­i­zenry. The ideal state is or­ganic, and ev­ery free and in­tel­li­gent group of cit­i­zens rep­re­sents a vi­tal and func­tion­ing or­gan within the larger gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­ism.

• defective, idle, indifferent, or criminal individuals disenfranchised

72:9.8The schools of states­man­ship have power to start pro­ceed­ings in the state courts look­ing to­ward the dis­en­fran­chise­ment of any de­fec­tive, idle, in­dif­fer­ent, or crim­i­nal in­di­vid­ual. These peo­ple rec­og­nize that, when fifty per cent of a na­tion is in­fe­rior or de­fec­tive and pos­sesses the bal­lot, such a na­tion is doomed. They be­lieve the dom­i­nance of medi­ocrity spells the down­fall of any na­tion. Vot­ing is com­pul­sory, heavy fines be­ing as­sessed against all who fail to cast their bal­lots.

71:2.178. Uni­ver­sal suf­frage. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment pre­sup­poses an in­tel­li­gent, ef­fi­cient, and uni­ver­sal elec­torate. The char­ac­ter of such a gov­ern­ment will ever be de­ter­mined by the char­ac­ter and cal­iber of those who com­pose it. As civ­i­liza­tion pro­gresses, suf­frage, while re­main­ing uni­ver­sal for both sexes, will be ef­fec­tively mod­i­fied, re­grouped, and oth­er­wise dif­fer­en­ti­ated.

45:7.6Suf­frage is uni­ver­sal on Je­ru­sem among these three groups of cit­i­zen­ship, but the vote is dif­fer­en­tially cast in ac­cor­dance with the rec­og­nized and duly reg­is­tered per­sonal pos­ses­sion of mota—mor­ontia wis­dom. The vote cast at a Je­ru­sem elec­tion by any one per­son­al­ity has a value rang­ing from one up to one thou­sand. Je­ru­sem cit­i­zens are thus clas­si­fied in ac­cor­dance with their mota achieve­ment.