Plural voting is the practice whereby one person might be able to vote multiple times in an election. It is not to be confused with a plurality voting system which does not necessarily involve plural voting. Weighted voting is a generalisation of plural voting.
In the United Kingdom, up to 1948, people affiliated with a university were allowed a vote in both a university constituency and their home constituency, and property owners could vote both in the constituency where their property lay and that in which they lived, if the two were different. In 1892 George Shaw-Lefevre MP stated "I have myself five votes for five different constituencies—not that I have sought the votes by purchasing property for that purpose; but they have come to me accidentally on account of holding property in different places. Two are occupation votes, two freehold votes, and one is for a University. But I know many who have a great many more votes than five. I think it was Sir Robert Fowler, a late Member of this House, who used to boast that he had no fewer than thirteen votes in different constituencies, and that he was able at one General Election to record them all. Then there is the well-known case of the Oxford tutor—a man who had eighteen different qualifications, and, at the Election of 1874, voted in respect of these different qualifications eighteen times. But this case pales before one I heard of recently. A clergyman of the Church of England, who has a hobby for acquiring qualifications in different constituencies, has been able to obtain fifty votes in different places, and I was informed that at a certain General Election he contrived to vote in no fewer than forty different places." The Representation of the People Act 1918, Section 8, provided that "a man shall not vote at a general election... for more than one constituency for which he is registered by virtue of other qualifications of whatever kind, and a woman shall not vote at a general election... for more than one constituency for which she is registered by virtue of any other qualification .". As a result, no-one could vote more than twice at a general election. After 1910, the Liberal Government was intent on passing a Plural Voting Bill that sought to prevent electors who appeared on the electoral register more than once from voting more than once. Liberal and Unionist Headquarters were in agreement that 29 seats were won by Unionists in December 1910 because of plural voting. However, before the bill could pass through Parliament, the Great War started and the bill was shelved. These practices were finally abolished for parliamentary elections by the Representation of the People Act 1948, which first applied in the 1950 General Election. However, plural voting for local government elections continued until it was abolished, outside the City of London, by the Representation of the People Act 1969. It still exists in the City of London - see City_of_London#Elections.
Limited companies and occupiers of premises with a rateable valuation of £10 could appoint nominees – as could companies for each £10 of their valuations – under a system of plural voting, which even allowed such votes to be cast in another constituency...
In Belgium, voting was restricted to the wealthy tax brackets from independence in 1830 until 1848, when it was expanded to include a somewhat larger number of voters. The restriction on voting was abolished in 1893 and replaced with plural voting. This was applied for elections from 1894 to 1919 as a way to limit the impact of universal suffrage. Every male citizen over 25 got one vote for legislative elections, but some electors got up to two supplementary votes according to some criteria:
holder of a school diploma;
family head over 30, paying a poll tax of at least five francs;
holder of a savings account of at least 2,000 francs, or beneficiary of a life annuity of at least 100 francs.
For municipal elections, a fourth vote was granted to family heads who paid a fixed level of electoral tax, or whose cadastral income was at least of 150 francs.
Plural voting, also referred to as "dual voting", was abolished in New Zealand in 1889. It was previously available to certain male property owners.
Parental vote
It has been proposed that a parent should get a vote for each dependent child, to increase the birth rate or to increase the importance of long-term planning as an election issue. This was proposed in France in 1871 by Louis Henri de Gueydon; in the UK in 2003 by Demos, and in 2007 by Dutch economist Lans Bovenberg. It is a policy of the Christian Party of Austria and has been proposed by some members of Law and Justice in Poland.
Contemporary theory
Philosopher Thomas Mulligan has proposed a system of plural voting which uses a mathematical algorithm to determine voters' ability and then gives higher-ability voters more votes.
Nevil Shute's 'In The Wet'
's 1953 novel In the Wet offers a system of up to seven votes for a person based on their achievements.
