The enfranchisement process throughout the English-speaking world has all but been a simultaneous one. In addition to the repeal of religious bans in the early 19th c., no less than six electoral reforms (Representation of the People Acts) were passed by the British Parliament between the mid-19th c. and the late 1960s, first enlarging the electorate on a property basis − but still within the confines of an exclusively male electorate −, then extending the right to vote to women