Universal Suffrage - Disenfranchisement

Disenfranchisement

All US states, with the exceptions of Maine and Vermont, disenfranchise some felons from voting depending on their current incarceration, parole or probation status; a number US states permanently disenfranchise some felons, even after their release from prison. Many states within the U.S. previously disenfranchised paupers, persons who either paid no direct taxes or those who received public assistance.

There are also differing degrees of legal recognition of non-resident citizens: non-resident Italians have representatives at-large in the Italian parliament; U.S. citizens voting abroad vote as residents of the last state where they (or their parents) lived; British people, however, cannot vote for their national parliament unless they have lived in the UK in the last fifteen years. A few nations also restrict those who are involved in the military or police forces, as it is in the case of Kuwait.

Many democratic countries, most notably the United Kingdom and France have had colonies, the inhabitants of which have not, or mostly not, been citizens of the imperial power, but subjects; subjects have generally not been entitled to vote for the imperial legislature. A peculiarly complex case is that of Algeria under the Fourth French Republic; Algeria was legally an integral part of France, but citizenship was restricted (as in the French colonies proper) by culture, not by race or ethnicity. Any Algerian could become a French citizen by choosing to live like one, but very few did as it was considered apostasy from Islam, the dominant religion in Algeria.

Citizens of an EU Member State are allowed to vote in EU parliamentary elections, as well as some local elections. For example, a British person living in Graz, Austria, would be able to vote in for the European Parliament as a resident of the "electoral district" of Austria, and to vote in Graz municipal elections. He would, however, not be able to vote in Austrian (federal) elections, or Styrian (state) elections. Similarly, all locally resident EU citizens in the UK are allowed to vote for representatives of the local council, and those resident in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland may vote for the devolved parliaments or assemblies, but only British, Irish and Commonwealth citizens are allowed to vote for the British House of Commons.