How to Use enfranchise in a Sentence

enfranchise

verb
  • Research from Denmark suggests enfranchising the young is a twofer: Parents are more likely to go to the polls if their teens who live at home do.
    Jim Braude, BostonGlobe.com, 14 Mar. 2018
  • Antis feared that giving women the right to vote would enfranchise Black citizens.
    USA Today, 24 Aug. 2020
  • In all states, people who completed prison sentences would be re-enfranchised.
    Abby Vesoulis, Time, 25 June 2019
  • The true-state solution would enfranchise the Palestinians.
    Daniel J. Arbess, WSJ, 2 Jan. 2019
  • Evidence of the new state’s division was revealed after Confederates, even those who had not sworn an oath to the Union, were re-enfranchised.
    Chris Stirewalt, Fox News, 21 June 2017
  • In fact, 20 other countries had enfranchised women before the United States.
    John Wilkens, sandiegouniontribune.com, 2 July 2017
  • The bishop was a keen defender of English Jews, who were enfranchised by an act of Parliament in 1753, only to see the act repealed a year later amid anti-Semitic public protest.
    Jason Farago, New York Times, 14 Mar. 2018
  • The election impact of re-enfranchising tens of thousands of new voters in a particular state is unclear.
    Jon Kamp, WSJ, 10 May 2018
  • The two-year exercise of making Dust also succeeded in helping Wright feel re-enfranchised with co-writing again.
    Gary Graff, Billboard, 22 June 2018
  • The Fifteenth Amendment, which enfranchised black men, was part of a calculation meant to produce more Republican voters.
    Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker, 3 July 2019
  • Local officials are fearful that enfranchising them would only bring fresh waves of migrants.
    Bloomberg.com, 11 May 2020
  • Debby’s work empowers the powerless, enfranchises the disenfranchised and gives voice to the voiceless.
    Sheldon S. Shafer, The Courier-Journal, 27 Sep. 2017
  • If slavery has been destroyed merely from necessity, let every class be enfranchised at the dictation of justice.
    Paul Ortiz, Time, 31 Jan. 2018
  • Ultimately, Raskin argued, the question was whether to enfranchise the taxpayers of Washington, D.C.
    Jeremy Beaman, Washington Examiner, 14 Apr. 2021
  • His decision has the potential to enfranchise some voters before the 2018 elections through a new clemency process, and may influence an existing campaign to amend the state's permanent voting ban.
    Jane C. Timm, NBC News, 2 Feb. 2018
  • The District of Columbia — both a city and pseudo-state wrapped up into one — could enfranchise 16- and-17-year-olds for all elections, from selecting members of advisory neighborhood councils to the next occupant of the White House.
    NBC News, 17 Apr. 2018
  • The full scope of the nationwide push to re-enfranchise the formerly incarcerated is difficult to assess because few states keep track of how many people with felony convictions register to vote.
    Nicole Lewis and Andrew R. Calderon, USA TODAY, 23 June 2021
  • Proponents pointed to last year’s elections, which set records for turnout as states emphasized mail-in voting during the pandemic, as evidence of how changing policies could enfranchise more voters.
    Siobhan Hughes, WSJ, 3 Mar. 2021
  • Confirmed by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson — a seminal decision of 1896 that has long been considered one of the court’s least felicitous — the doctrine enfranchised the separation of the races in public facilities.
    Margalit Fox, New York Times, 21 May 2018
  • The statue was erected decades after the Civil War primarily as a symbol of white resistance to, and triumph over, federal efforts to empower and enfranchise former slaves.
    Rick Hampson, USA TODAY, 17 Aug. 2017
  • One reason is because women in Massachusetts were not enfranchised until the 19th Amendment was ratified.
    Ysabelle Kempe, BostonGlobe.com, 27 June 2019
  • Higher education has radically changed, enfranchising students of all backgrounds to share their stories and to have their rights respected.
    Lincoln Anthony Blades, Teen Vogue, 20 July 2017
  • Republicans say the integrity of the process demands ensuring that only the eligible vote, while Democrats say that voter fraud is practically nonexistent and that the goal should be to enfranchise all who are eligible.
    The Washington Post, OregonLive.com, 11 June 2018
  • CNN International reported last week on efforts to enfranchise noncitizens in Germany, where about 14% of the population cannot vote in federal elections like the one recently conducted there.
    Zachary B. Wolf, CNN, 12 Dec. 2021
  • The question is why Republicans, particularly those schooled in McConnell’s procedural will to power, would help enfranchise people who aren’t likely to vote Republican anytime soon.
    Kevin Mahnken, The New Republic, 25 June 2020
  • This will enfranchise students who are immunocompromised or suffer from severe social anxiety and allow teaching to continue both inside and outside the traditional classroom as necessary.
    Steve Schering, chicagotribune.com, 16 Mar. 2021
  • While supporters have touted its ability to enfranchise Americans with disabilities and those serving overseas — both groups with dismal voting turnout — the company has largely been quiet about addressing security concerns.
    Kevin Collier, NBC News, 13 Feb. 2020
  • Florida has a particularly fraught history with re-enfranchising former felons.
    Lauren Lantry, ABC News, 8 Mar. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'enfranchise.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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