Talk:Disfranchisement

2 U.S. cases
Not sure if this belongs here or elsewhere, but there are currently two cases in the U.S. courts challenging disenfranchisement of felons: Locke v. Farrakhan in Washington State and Hayden v. Pataki in New York. The NAACP LDF is involved in both cases. Hope that's useful to someone. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:13, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

I think the above information is appropo to this article. Also, I believe there should be a history portion of disenfranchisement in the U.S. that would include white unlanded men, women, blacks and other minorities that have been disenfranchised either by federal or applicable state laws in the U.S. Additionally, one might want to add the disenfranchisement that occurs with modern immigration and those unable to establish residency. Stevenmitchell 19:30, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I also had to edit the part that said Puerto Rico is subject to "all U.S. laws" which it is not. I don't know if Puerto Rico is subject to the draft when it is implemented, but I do know that Puerto Rico pays no federal income tax (that may apply to other federal taxes) and that they are ineligible to receive certain government distributions. Stevenmitchell 19:41, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Needs sourcing
Looking more closely, I suspect that this edit, which I reverted, was not vandalism, though it was at least partially mistaken. The reason I thought it was vandalism was the following change "In 13 48 U.S. states, persons convicted of a felony&mdash;that is, a crime punishable with a year's imprisonment or more&mdash;are denied the vote only while serving sentence in a state prison." Clearly, there are a lot more than two U.S. states that continue to deprive ex-felons of the vote after they've served their sentence. But I've now come to suspect that this anonymous editor just overlooked the word only in that sentence and was intending a correction. The other change was " Four Two states&mdash;Maine, Massachusetts, Utah and Vermont&mdash;allow prison inmates to vote unless disfranchisement is meted out as a separate punishment." I now suspect that was correct. Neither the old version nor the new gave any citation, so it's hard to be sure, but, which looks like a reasonably credible source, bears out the change, so I will restore it with that citation. In general, the article needs citations. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:16, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I suspect that a lot of the U.S. material could be sourced from documents at on the site of The Sentencing Project. Does someone want to take this on? -- Jmabel | Talk 08:26, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Undue Weight- District of Columbia
IS THIS REALLY WHAT THE ARTICLE SHOULD BE ABOUT? Although I'm a newcomer, I feel as though the section on DC seems incredibly interest based and not necessarily a valid encyclopedic article as presented; I'm not sure that it's considered a particularly large issue given that there are municipal elections and they are not a state. Territories, commonwealths etc. have not by my understanding ever been allowed to vote in national elections. Moreover, I'm not sure that they were ever DISenfranchise as they were never franchise nationally to begin with.

Also, I'm sure there are many more examples of disenfranchisement in nations suffering from violent or ethnic conflict. I am pretty sure that currently in Sri Lanka the 300,000 IDPs are effectively disenfranchised as are probably the 10,000 imprisoned former LTTE as well as many current Tamils. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.72.133.18 (talk) 03:52, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

2000 Presidential Election
It is alleged in the widely available DVD "Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" that tens of thousands of Democratic Party members in Florida, most of them black, were intentionally disenfranchised because their names were similar to other people's names who had been criminally convicted. It is shown, for example, that some white guy in Ohio was convicted and, as a result, a black guy in Florida was deprived of his vote. In the close election of 2000, this had the effect of swinging the choice for president to the Governor of Florida's brother. {{unsigned|71.252.4.167|25 June 2006}


 * The fiasco of Florida's effort to cleanse the voter rolls of felons has been much written about, certainly in sources more authoritative than a partisan DVD. See United States presidential election%2C 2000 for discussion of this. I don't think that one particular incident would merit discussion in this article, but I could imagine a more general discussion of how people can be incorrectly "caught up" in category intended to be disfranchised. - Jmabel | Talk 02:04, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

move to disenfranchisement
why is this called "disfranchisement"? certainly the form with -en- is far more common; i'd never even heard the non-"en" version, and google lists the -en- term as more than 10 times as common as the other. similarly, my dictionary (Webster's New World) has the -en- version as normal, and the other as a pointer to it.

Benwing 23:23, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

If you Google "disfranchisement" and look at the first 5 results (ignoring Wikipedia) they are:
 * 1) The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy
 * 2) A dictionary entry on a site from Cal Tech
 * 3) An article on the site of the Virginia Center for Digital History
 * 4) An article on the Digital History site of the University of Houston
 * 5) The NAACP

For "disenfranchisement" it's:
 * 1) Human Rights Watch/The Sentencing Project
 * 2) The Sentencing Project itself
 * 3) The NAACP-LDF
 * 4) A personal site called "Failure is Impossible"
 * 5) PrisonSucks.com

If you keep looking down the list, you will see that the academic sites pretty much all fall in the first camp; the NGOs are split down the middle; the big numbers for "disenfranchisement" probably come from more informal use. But the trend may now be in favor of the latter. FWIW, my 1904 Merriam-Webster (an interesting baseline to see how the language is evolving) lists both, but for "disenfranchise" it just says "To disfranchise. To deprive of the rights of a citizen", with the fuller definition at "To disfranchise". So you may be right about where the language is trending, and the academic uses may be more linguistically conservative in this respect. I find "disenfranchise" a little weird etymologically, since it has two prefixes that pretty much contradict each other.

All of that said, I won't scream if we move it. - Jmabel | Talk 20:15, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * But please, let's keep the article title and the article text in line with one another. If we are going to change the wording, let's move the article. And if you wanted to open a discussion, you might have allowed more than 5 minutes (!) before you went and changed the article. - Jmabel | Talk 20:18, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * My opinion is that the Google counting ignores several grammatical and usage issues. One is that the "dis-" prefix is affected by the word to which it is added.  Academic sites are likely to study the entire field or its history, using past tense and style guides such as .  Activist victim organizations are likely to be interested in present and future tense, for which "enfranchisement" is a shorter form than other phrases.  Complications include trying to avoid confusion with the business meaning of "franchise" during the past 40 years, and that trying to get the vote often has a different word: "suffrage".  (SEWilco 15:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC))

Incorrect Usage
While Disfranchisement is older of the two terms, disenfranchisement is the far more common use of the phrase and is significantly more recognizable of the two. Per WP:MOS it should therefore is should be disenfranchisement.


 * It's open to debate. I don't see why you are so adamant on your point. Sheesh. Both mean the same thing. As a legal term, the former is prefered in law, but the latter lay distortion appears to be gaining ground in general media. Foofighter20x (talk) 04:09, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

We had an edit request in and I thought I'd crosspost over here FWIW:

"Disfranchise and disenfranchise mean the same: to deprive of rights or privileges. Disfranchise is the traditional form, but it has given way to disenfranchise over the last several decades, and the latter now prevails by a large margin. This is the case in all main varieties of English, and it is true despite the fact that several major dictionaries—including Oxford and American Heritage—still favor the shorter form.

Etymology and logic rarely guide English usage, but it is worth noting that there is a sound basis for the shift from disfranchise to disenfranchise. Enfranchise is the verb meaning (1) to set free, or (2) to give rights or privileges. Franchise bore these senses long ago, and thorough dictionaries still list them, but the word was never commonly used this way, and it wholly gave way to enfranchise for these senses from the 17th century on. So while disfranchise might make sense when we consider its roots, disenfranchise makes sense in modern English because it is the opposite of enfranchise, not of franchise, which is now primarily a noun.

There remain generations of living English speakers who grew up when disfranchise was more common, so disenfranchise still faces opposition. But the longer form has now all but pushed the shorter one out of the language (more completely in current searchable news and blog writing than in books, but books tend to lag a few years behind), so there’s no need to appease the few who continue to resist the change (except perhaps if you’re writing for a very old-fashioned professor or boss)." Source: http://grammarist.com/usage/disenfranchise-disfranchise/

Best, Sam Sailor Sing 06:35, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

According to Reference #1 "The form disenfranchisement has become much more common, but not in reliable sources.". Disenfranchisement appears in the Oxford, Cambridge and Longman dictionaries  and Disenfranchise is in The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style, Collins as well as Merriam-Webster. Those instances were enough for "but not in reliable sources" me to delete. See also Grammarphobia May 31, 2010. Mcljlm (talk) 15:14, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Disenfranchisement of the American Colonists
The author states that the conflict leading to American independence “is a good example of the intentional disenfranchisement of a group of people (British colonists in America) by the government in Britain”. This sounds like Hollywood history.

A more widely held view is that, insofar as there was disenfranchisement of the American colonists, it was an incidental or even accidental result of the transfer of power from the British King to Parliament that had taken place in the 1600s and 1700s beginning with the English Civil War in 1640. -- Kjb 20:41, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Disfranchisement after the Civil War
Editing the additional U.S. history and details is invited at Disfranchisement after the Civil War. Please don't link articles to that article until it is somewhat more polished. (SEWilco 06:58, 25 February 2007 (UTC))

Request for assistance
Hiya, I'm trying to work on the article at Reform Act 1832, which uses both the words "disfranchise" and "disenfranchise". Is there a subtle difference between these two terms, or is it an American/UK thing? Or should we be consistent in word usage throughout the article? --Elonka 18:24, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It's not a US/UK thing, but either of the words are used. If a person wants to be consistent in using just one of the words, it should be fine then. That-Vela-Fella 02:58, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Being allowed to vote is the "franchise". A "dis-" prefix means loss of the franchise.  The "en-" prefix indicates acquiring it, so technically "disenfranchise" means losing the gaining of it.  But "disenfranchise" has been used when losing the ability to vote is the intended meaning.  There's also the matter of whether a child born to someone who was enfranchised would upon losing the vote have been disfranchised or disenfranchised (because they were never enfranchised because they never were given the franchise due to having the franchise).   I've been using "disfranchise" except when a source had the improperly used term, but it's fine with me if that is corrected except in quotations.  (SEWilco 03:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC))


 * "Disfranchise" is correct and used in academic sources. "Disenfranchise" is being used but adds a syllable that is not necessary.Parkwells (talk) 12:39, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Israel
Aren't Palestinians in the occupied territories not allowed to vote? Should that be included? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.104.105.179 (talk) 13:16, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm quite sure they are allowed to in the local Palestinian elections, but not Israeli if they are not citizens of the state. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 03:55, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Selective Disenfranchisement of Disabled Electors
I've pulled the section on 'handicap' (ugh!) out of the US section and replaced it with a larger section under the more widely acceptable Disability label and discussing the range of issues which may selectively disenfranchise disabled electors, which are much more wide-ranging than was previously addressed. However I've only been able to do this from a UK perspective and it needs expanding with input on the issues in other countries.

DWG77.96.255.55 (talk) 11:49, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Copy-edits
Feedback encouraged. The article is woefully short of sources, given its many strong claims, and arguably fails WP:NPOV in conflating lack of representation with suffrage. Lfstevens (talk) 15:20, 7 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Agree - there are other articles that deal with representation, even extension of suffrage, which I think is the better place for following its history of expansion, rather than describing all those who couldn't vote in early years as "disfranchised" and backing into it. This should address specific policies and laws that exclude people. It already is close to dying under its own range. "Globalization" may kill it altogether, if editors attempt to account for all the peoples disfranchised through various political disruptions everywhere. It might be better if editors seek to create article on disfranchisement in specific countries.


 * Even if limited to the US, this article has huge gaps, specifically Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era of the millions of most blacks in former Confederate states, achieved through law from 1890-1910, after decades of violence around elections that effectively disfranchised many. This situation essentially lasted for decades (although specific provisions were sometimes ruled unconstitutional, states devised new means of disfranchisement) until federal civil rights laws of mid-1960s and enforcement of constitutional rights.Parkwells (talk) 17:03, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Take a real look at the issue
I was looking for something else when I came upon this article. The impression it gives is that "disfranchisement" is something exclusive to democracies. As such, this article is extremely biased towards exonerating really corrupt governments or societies (by their lack of mention) and being critical of only governments in the western world. -- kosboot (talk) 14:51, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Agree, but it may be difficult to cover the whole world in this article. Perhaps editors should take the topic to create articles related to those other nations, or ensure that nations' history articles include issues related to voting and disfranchisement. So many different issues are involved in each case.Parkwells (talk) 17:05, 10 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Kosboot, Have come across an article about late 19th-century disfranchisement in the American South that poses interesting questions/issues about how resistance can be effective, but, more importantly, a new journal, Democratization, which started in 2001. It might include more articles about what you're interested in. See STEPHEN TUCK, "Democratization and the Disfranchisement of African Americans in the US South during the Late 19th Century" (pdf), Democratization, Vol. 14, No. 4, Aug. 2007, pp. 580-602. The journal is published by Taylor and Francis, and you can sign up for email alerts on articles at . There is also (on the right side of the page), a note from the editor discussing the journal.Parkwells (talk) 12:46, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Residency and Ethnicity are independent issues
While they may be related for the US, it seems the two reasons for disfranchisement are not necessarily related. Can we split the sections? --Krisrose (talk) 22:17, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

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Felony disenfranchisement merge
This was done per Talk:Felony disenfranchisement. The end result seems better than the previous overall state, but specific sections could certainly use some work. The UK Hirst stuff is pretty repetitive... perhaps worthy of an article of its own, too. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 16:01, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Opening sentences of “Disenfranchisement”
The grammar here definitely needs to be fixed, but I'm not sure exactly how to fix it while retaining the correct information. OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 18:39, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

English please
"Disfranchisement (also called disenfranchisement) is the revocation of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or through practices, prevention of a person exercising the right to vote. Disfranchisement is also termed to the revocation of power or control of a particular individual, community or being to the natural amenity they are abound in; that is to deprive of a franchise, of a legal right, of some privilege or inherent immunity." 1. literally this means that disfranchisement is: a) the revocation of suffrage of a person or group of people or b) "through practices prevention of a person exercising the right to vote" Is this supposed to be English?

Can't we simply say "...consists in either revoking someone's right to vote or preventing someone from voting by resorting to some technicality in the law"?

2. "Disfranchisement is also termed to the revocation of power" Termed TO? Revocation of control TO? Does one have control TO things?

"the natural amenity they are ABOUND IN" Again, which language is this? Please forgive me, I am not trying to be fastidious. I just wonder in which dictionary may one found "to be abound in"—and what it means. Here I have no suggestion, because I honesty can't see what on Earth Wikipedia is talking about.

3. "that is to deprive of a franchise, of a legal right, of some privilege or inherent immunity." This is correct, and was enough; all the previous sentences were absolutely unnecessary.

80.104.16.10 (talk) 16:03, 14 October 2020 (UTC)


 * I believe that all the comments you raised have been addressed in subsequent edits to the page. Seabass-labrax (talk) 17:52, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Which word? Moved from article
Someone had put all the following into a footnote in the article, after the word disenfranchisement, but it is better here. What matters is what the reliable sources say, and they prefer disfranchisement. Moonraker (talk) 21:09, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Even in books, it is now used about twice as often as disfranchisement. It is also listed as the more common form in most dictionaries. An exception is the American Heritage Dictionary, which is however contradicted by its own guide to contemporary usage and style.

When people don’t get the right to vote
When people don’t get the right to vote 108.35.237.78 (talk) 01:01, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Title
Since Disenfranchisement is now much more common than Disfranchisement it would seem to be time to change the article's title {and then its opening, and replace disfranchisement with disenfranchisement elsewhere in the article}. In addition, since in several of the country sections the emphasis is on where prisoners can vote (I came to this article while looking for that subject) perhaps that should be taken into account as well. Mcljlm (talk) 14:50, 28 September 2023 (UTC)