New Zealand became the first self-governing country where women could vote nationally

After years of petitions led by campaigner Kate Sheppard, New Zealand's Parliament passed the Electoral Act in September 1893, giving women the right to vote in national elections. Opponents warned it would wreck family life; instead, over 90% of eligible women registered to vote within weeks, and the reform became a model cited by suffrage movements elsewhere.

— Patricia Grimshaw, Women's Suffrage in New Zealand — 1972
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