If a democracy is simply a “system in which rulers are selected through competitive elections”, then it is still right to call an electoral system a democracy if a specific part or group of the population population does not have the right to vote? Until the nineteenth century, many Western democracies had property requirements specified in their election laws. In the United States, for example, the electoral system established in 1776 initially favored only white, privileged men because only white men with a certain property qualification had the right to vote. Additionally, women were not granted the right to vote until 1920 with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment and even when African Americans were initially granted the right to vote, many of them were still restricted due to taxes imposed at polling places. While I agree that democracy consists of competitive elections, as Przeworski states, I also believe that the minimum definition should include citizens' universal right to vote. If democracy is defined by “majority rules,” how accurate are election results in determining what the majority of a population wants if some people aren't even allowed to vote? Although the key difference between democracy and dictatorship is that democracy involves competitive elections that induce compliance, these elections should have no restrictions on who can vote based on race, gender, or ethnicity, as long as democracy is defined as a system of government in which power lies with the people, who can govern directly or through elected representatives