Elsie Law's Daily Dose Of The Law

According to Black's Law Dictionary to disfranchise is "to deprive of the rights and privileges of a free citizen; to deprive of chartered rights and immunities; to deprive of any franchise, as of the right of voting in elections, etc. In any election where the party system furnishes the means by which the citizen's right of suffrage is made effective, denial of his party's right to participate in the election accomplishes the 'disfranchisement of voters' or compels them, if they vote, to vote for representatives of political parties other than that to which they belong, and the deprivation of the right of selection is a deprivation of the right of franchise."