Today the word mostly means a business chain or a movie series. But its oldest political meaning is the most important one: the right to vote, the freedom to take part in choosing your government.
In politics, the franchise is the right to vote. The word comes from the Old French franchise, meaning freedom or a privilege granted, from franc, free. To hold the franchise is to be free to participate in elections.
It is the twin of suffrage, naming the same right, though franchise often carries the sense of being admitted to membership in the political community. To be enfranchised is to be brought in; to be disenfranchised is to be shut out.
Who held it has shifted enormously. The history of the franchise is the history of an expanding circle, from white male property owners at the founding to, eventually, nearly all adult citizens, through amendments and laws that beat back the barriers one by one.
It remains contested at the margins. Modern fights over voter rolls, identification requirements, registration deadlines, and felony voting rights are all, at bottom, fights over the franchise, over who is admitted to the vote and who is kept from it.
