How have voting rights been expanded throughout history?

That is a very complicated matter, as there are so many countries in the world that have taken so many different paths and timelines to general voting rights.

Generally speaking - and limiting the issue to the US, Europe and South America - the middle of the 19th century saw voting rights first being given to what might be called the upper class and better-off middle class male citizens that could show the prescribed level of property and wealth. Through the second half of the 19th century the vote was gradually extended to all tax-paying male citizens.

The first decades of the 20th century saw the vote being extended to women and to all citizens of a country, regardless of wealth and status.

For a more detailed overview of the voting rights history of the US, click the related link below.