The term franchise in its electoral sense denotes a right of voting at elections and the qualifications upon which the right is based.

The word franchise has various significations, both in popular and in a legal sense, and there is some confusion arising from a failure to discriminate in what sense the word is used. In a broad and popular sense, it embraces in a free country the right of trial by jury, the right of habeus corpus, and political rights of subjects and citizens like the elective franchise. [Chicago vs. Dunber, 95 III, 575].