Timeline of women's suffrage
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Women's suffrage has been granted (and been revoked) at various times in various countries throughout the world. In many countries women's suffrage was granted before universal suffrage, so women (and men) from certain races were still unable to vote.
The timeline below lists years when women's suffrage was enacted in various places. In many cases the first voting took place in a subsequent year.
Although some States gave certain women rights to vote, it must be noted that New Zealand (in 1893) was the first nation to give all women the right to vote.
Disclaimer: This timeline reflects a vast amount of information from the women's suffrage movement throughout the globe. In many cases, countries passed various laws which progressively gave women the right to vote. Many countries may appear on the list more than once due to the fact that restrictions on suffrage were only lifted slowly.
- 1776
New Jersey (although rescinded in 1807)
- 1838
- 1861
South Australia (Only property-owning women for local elections. Universal franchise in 1894)
- 1862
- 1864
Women in Victoria, Australia women were accidentally enfranchised by the Electoral Act (1863), and proceeded to vote in the following year's elections. The Act was amended in 1865 to correct the error.[1]
- 1869
United Kingdom (only in local elections, only unmarried women until 1894)
- 1869-1920
States and territories of the USA (not at the federal level), one after another starting with the Wyoming Territory in 1869. The USA as a whole granted women's suffrage in 1920 (see below).
- 1881
Isle of Man (only property-owners until 1913, not universal until 1919)
- 1883
Widows granted right to vote in Canada
- 1893
New Zealand September 19, 1893 (although not to stand for election) including Maori women
Cook Islands
- 1894
- South Australia grants universal suffrage, extending the franchise to all women (property-owners could vote in local elections from 1861), the first in Australia to do so. Women are also granted the right to stand for parliament, making South Australia the first in the world to do so.
- United Kingdom extends right to vote in local elections to married women
- 1899
- 1902
Commonwealth of Australia (The Australian Constitution gave the federal franchise to all persons allowed to vote for the lower house in each state unless the Commonwealth Parliament stipulated otherwise. Thus, South Australian and Western Australian women could vote in the first federal elections. Following the first elections, the Commonwealth passed legislation extending federal franchise to all white women, including those in states which had not yet done so.)
New South Wales
- 1903
- 1905
- 1906
- 1908
- 1913
- 1915
- 1916
- Canada (Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan only)
- 1918
Austria- Canada on federal level (last province to enact women's suffrage was Quebec in 1940)
Estonia (the republican side in the civil war)
Germany
Latvia
Poland
Russia- United Kingdom (including Ireland) (see Representation of the People Act 1918: women above the age of 30, compared to 21 for men and 19 for those who had fought in World War One. Various property qualifications remained.)
- 1919
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Belgium (only at municipal level)
Georgia
Hungary (April 2; somewhat restricted in 1925; full suffrage granted in 1945)
Luxembourg
The Netherlands (right to stand in election granted in 1917)
Ukraine
- 1920
Albania
Czechoslovakia (later divided into the Czech Republic and Slovakia)
United States (Federal level and all remaining states)
- 1921
- 1922
- 1924
- 1925
Italy (local elections only)
- 1927
- 1928
Guyana- United Kingdom (franchise equal to that for men)
- 1929
Ecuador
Puerto Rico (to vote)
- 1930
South Africa (only granted to white women on the same basis as white men; black women did not qualify for the vote even though some black men did)
Turkey
- 1931
- 1932
- 1934
- 1935
- 1937
Philippines- Puerto Rico(to stand for election)
- 1938
- 1939
- 1940
Quebec becomes final Canadian province to give female suffrage
- 1941
- 1942
- 1944
- 1945
- 1946
- 1947
- 1948
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN includes Article 21: The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.- Belgium
Israel (same year of independence)
Iraq- Italy
Korea
Niger
Surinam
- 1949
- 1950
- 1951
- 1952
- United Nations enacts Convention on the Political Rights of Women
Bolivia
Greece
Lebanon
- 1953
- 1954
- 1955
- 1956
- 1957
- 1958
- 1959
- 1960
- 1961
- 1962
- 1963
- 1964
- 1965
- 1967
- 1968
- 1970
- 1971
Switzerland (on the federal level; introduced on the Cantonal (state) level from 1958-1990)
- 1972
- 1974
- 1975
- 1976
Portugal (restrictions lifted)
- 1978
- 1980
- 1984
- 1986
- 1990
Samoa- Switzerland (the Canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden is forced by the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland to accept women's suffrage)
- 1994
Kazakhstan- South Africa: franchise extended to black men and women
- 1997
- 2002
- 2003
- 2005
- 2006
United Arab Emirates (limited)
