Moreover, the joyous ones were President Khatami's children women and the young who had felt themselves disfranchised during most of the life of the Islamic republic, but who turned out to elect him president in May.

ECONOMIST: Islam��s political football

America is one of only a handful of countries that bar prisoners from voting, and in some states that ban is lifelong: 2% of American adults and 14% of black men are disfranchised because of criminal convictions.

ECONOMIST: Far too many Americans are behind bars

This decision may have allowed some additional registration, but it is clear that thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of voters have been disfranchised by new citizenship requirements, the displacement of farm labourers and the government's refusal to accept postal votes.

ECONOMIST: Zimbabwean law and order

It is greatest and growing fastest among Tory and Labour voters, not just among the poor disfranchised Liberals who are a fickle job-lot of voters anyway, nor among the Scottish and Welsh nationalists who could yet benefit (temporarily) by the present system.

ECONOMIST: From the archive