The phrase surged in English-language usage around 1880, thanks in part to British
trade unionist
George Howell, who used the phrase "one man, one vote" in political pamphlets. During the mid-to-late 20th-century period of
decolonisation and the struggles for national sovereignty, this phrase became widely used in
developing countries where majority populations sought to gain political power in proportion to their numbers. The slogan was notably used by the
anti-apartheid movement during the 1980s, which sought to end white minority rule in
South Africa. In the United States, the "one person, one vote" principle was invoked in a series of cases by the
Warren Court in the 1960s during the height of related civil rights activities. By the second half of the 20th century, many states had neglected to redistrict for decades, because their legislatures were dominated by rural interests. But during the 20th century, population had increased in urban, industrialized areas. In addition to applying the
Equal Protection Clause of the constitution, the
U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion (5–4) led by
Chief Justice Earl Warren in
Reynolds v. Sims (1964) ruled that state legislatures, unlike the
U.S. Congress, needed to have representation in both houses that was based on districts containing roughly equal populations, with redistricting as needed after the decennial censuses.
Northern Ireland When
Northern Ireland was established in 1921, it adopted the same political system then in place for the Westminster Parliament and British local government. But the
Parliament of Northern Ireland did not follow Westminster in changes to the
franchise from 1945. As a result, into the 1960s, plural voting was still allowed not only for local government (as it was for local government in Great Britain), but also for the Parliament of Northern Ireland. This meant that in local council elections (as in Great Britain), ratepayers and their spouses, whether renting or owning the property, could vote, and company directors had an extra vote by virtue of their company's status. However, unlike the situation in Great Britain, non-ratepayers did not have a vote in local government elections. The franchise for elections to the Parliament of Northern Ireland had been extended in 1928 to all adult citizens who were not disqualified, at the same time as the franchise for elections to Westminster. But, university representation and the business vote continued for elections to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland until 1969. They were abolished in 1948 for elections to the UK House of Commons (including Westminster seats in Northern Ireland). Historians and political scholars have debated the extent to which the franchise for local government contributed to
unionist electoral success in controlling councils in
nationalist-majority areas. Based on a number of inequities, the
Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was founded in 1967. It had five primary demands, and added the demand that each citizen in Northern Ireland be afforded the same number of votes for local government elections (as stated above, this was not yet the case anywhere in the United Kingdom). The slogan "one man, one vote" became a rallying cry for this campaign. The Parliament of Northern Ireland voted to update the voting rules for elections to the Northern Ireland House of Commons, which were implemented for the
1969 Northern Ireland general election, and for local government elections, which was done by the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1969, passed on 25 November 1969.
United States Historical background The
United States Constitution requires a
decennial census for the purpose of assuring fair apportionment of seats in the
United States House of Representatives among the states, based on their population. Reapportionment has generally been conducted without incident with the exception of the reapportionment that should have followed the
1920 census, which was effectively skipped pending resolution by the
Reapportionment Act of 1929.
State legislatures, however, initially established election of congressional representatives from
districts that were often based on traditional counties or parishes that had preceded founding of the new government. The question then arose as to whether the legislatures were required to ensure that House districts were roughly equal in population and to draw new districts to accommodate demographic changes. The
Constitution incorporates the result of the
Great Compromise, which established representation for the U.S. Senate. Each state was equally represented in the Senate with two representatives, without regard to population. The
Founding Fathers considered this principle of such importance that they included a clause in the Constitution to prohibit any state from being deprived of equal representation in the Senate without its permission; see
Article V of the United States Constitution. For this reason, "one person, one vote" has never been implemented in the U.S. Senate, in terms of representation by states. When states established their legislatures, they often adopted a bicameral model based on colonial governments or the federal government. Many copied the Senate principle, establishing an upper house based on geography – for instance, a state senate with one representative drawn from each county. By the 20th century, this often resulted in state senators having widely varying amounts of political power, with ones from rural areas having votes equal in power to those of senators representing much greater urban populations.
Activism in the
Civil Rights Movement to restore the ability of African Americans in the South to register and vote highlighted other voting inequities across the country. In 1964–1965, the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 and
Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed, in part to enforce the constitutional voting rights of
African Americans. Numerous court challenges were raised, including in Alabama, to correct the decades in which state legislative districts had not been redefined or reapportioned, resulting in lack of representation for many residents.
Court cases In the United States Supreme Court held in a 4–3 plurality decision that
Article I, Section 4 left to the legislature of each state the authority to establish the time, place, and manner of holding elections for representatives. However, in the United States Supreme Court under Chief Justice
Earl Warren overturned the previous decision in
Colegrove holding that malapportionment claims under the
Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment were not exempt from judicial review under
Article IV, Section 4, as the equal protection issue in this case was separate from any political questions. The "one person, one vote" doctrine, which requires electoral districts to be apportioned according to population, thus making each district roughly equal in population, was further affirmed by the
Warren Court in the landmark cases that followed
Baker, including , which concerned the
county unit system in Georgia; which concerned
state legislature districts (decided together with
WMCA, Inc. v. Lomenzo); , which concerned
U.S. congressional districts; and which concerned
local government districts. The Warren Court's decision was upheld in . , said states may use total population in drawing districts. In 2018, a federal court ruled on the constitutionality of Maine's use of
ranked-choice voting, stating that "'one person, one vote' does not stand in opposition to
ranked voting so long as all electors are treated equally at the ballot." • In 1975, a Michigan state court clarified that one-man, one-vote does not mandate plurality vote, and upheld instant-runoff voting as permitted by the state constitution. • By contrast, the
Federal Constitutional Court in Germany ruled that the overhang mandates at the time did violate the principle of equal voting rights, as they assign some voters a
negative voting weight. •
Training Wheels for Citizenship, a failed 2004 initiative in
California, attempted to give
minors between 14 and 17 years of age (who otherwise cannot vote) a fractional vote in state elections. Among the criticisms leveled at the proposed initiative was that it violated the "one man, one vote" principle. • Courts have established that
special-purpose districts must also follow the one person, one vote rule. • Due to treaties signed by the United States in 1830 and 1835, two
Native American tribes (the
Cherokee and
Choctaw) each hold the right to a
non-voting delegate position in the
House of Representatives. As of 2019, only the Cherokee have attempted to exercise that right. Because all tribal governments related to the two in question exist within present-day state boundaries, it has been suggested that such an arrangement could potentially violate the "one man, one vote" principle by granting a "super-vote"; a Cherokee or Choctaw voter would theoretically have two House representatives (state and tribal), whereas any other American would only have one. (The existence of a high level of
wasted votes under either system might mean that in fact the Cherokee voter might have helped to elect neither of his ostensible representatives.)
Australia In
Australia,
one vote, one value is a democratic principle, applied in electoral laws governing
redistributions of
electoral divisions of the House of Representatives. The principle calls for all electoral divisions to have the same number of enrolled voters (not residents or population), within a specified percentage of variance. The electoral laws of the federal
House of Representatives, and of the state and territory parliaments, follow the principle, with a few exceptions. The principle does not apply to the
Senate because, under the
Australian constitution, each state is entitled to the same number of senators, irrespective of the population of the state.
Malapportionment Currently, for the House of Representatives, the number of enrolled voters in each division in a state or territory can vary by up to 10% from the average quota for the state or territory, and the number of voters can vary by up to 3.5% from the average projected enrolment three-and-a-half years into the future. The allowable quota variation of the number of electors in each division was reduced from 20% to 10% by the
Commonwealth Electoral Act (No. 2) 1973, passed at the
joint sitting of Parliament in 1974. The change was instigated by the
Whitlam Labor government. However, for various reasons, such as the constitutional requirement that Tasmania must have at least five lower house members, larger seats like
Cowper (New South Wales) comprise almost double the electors of smaller seats like
Solomon in the
Northern Territory. Historically, all states (other than Tasmania) have had some form of
malapportionment, but electoral reform in recent decades has resulted in electoral legislation and policy frameworks based on the "one vote, one value" principle. However, in the Western Australian and Queensland Legislative Assemblies, seats covering areas greater than may have fewer electors than the general tolerance would otherwise allow. The following chart documents the years that the upper and lower houses of each Australian state parliament replaced malapportionment with the 'one vote, one value' principle.
Proposed constitutional amendment The Whitlam Labor government proposed to amend the Constitution in a
referendum in 1974 to require the use of population to determine the size of electorates rather than alternative methods of distributing seats, such as geographical size. The bill was not passed by the
Senate and instead the referendum was put to voters using the deadlock provision in
Section 128. The referendum was not carried, obtaining a majority in just one State and achieving 47.20% support, an overall minority of 407,398 votes. In 1988, the Hawke Labor government submitted a
referendum proposal to enshrine the principle in the
Australian Constitution. The referendum question came about due to the widespread
malapportionment and
gerrymandering which was endemic during
Joh Bjelke-Petersen's term as the Queensland Premier. The proposal was opposed by both the
Liberal Party of Australia and the
National Party of Australia. The referendum proposal was not carried, obtaining a majority in no States and achieving just 37.6% support, an overall minority of 2,335,741. == Measurement ==