section_path: Basis of exclusion/Wealth, tax class, social class
section_name: Wealth, tax class, social class
paragraph_text: Wealth, tax class, social class
  
  Until the nineteenth century, many Western proto-democracies had property qualifications in their electoral laws; e.g. only landowners could vote (because the only tax for such countries was the property tax), or the voting rights were weighted according to the amount of taxes paid (as in the Prussian three-class franchise). Most countries abolished the property qualification for national elections in the late nineteenth century, but retained it for local government elections for several decades. Today these laws have largely been abolished, although the homeless may not be able to register because they lack regular addresses.
  
  In the United Kingdom, until the House of Lords Act 1999, peers who were members of the House of Lords were excluded from voting for the House of Commons as they were not commoners. Although there is nothing to prevent the monarch from voting, it is considered improper for the monarch to do so.
  
  Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, many nations made voters pay to elect officials, keeping impoverished people from being fully enfranchised. These laws were in effect in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.