Rome’s Century Assembly gave richer voters greater influence, resembling the Communal Award.

Evidence

Comitia Centuriata, or the Century Assembly, was originally an assembly of the Roman military, but soon turned into a political assembly, and became one of the three public assemblies of the Republic of Rome where citizens, grouped into ‘centuries’, voted on legislative, electoral and judicial matters. In the early days, entry to the Senate was only by birth and rank—so the patricians called the shots. Even in the Comitia Centuriata, instituted in about 450 BCE, entry was restricted initially to the patricians and the plebeians were kept at bay. Even after the Comitia Centuriata came to include plebeians, its organisation and voting system nevertheless gave greater influence to the rich than to the poor, which as Ambedkar points out, resembled the Communal Award. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1060

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Connects to Ambedkar’s argument that mere voting rights do not empower the marginalized, key to his critique of separate electorates.

Related

• Formal voting rights do not empower groups without structured electoral weight. (similarity 0.83)
• Giving the oppressed the vote does not by itself empower them. (similarity 0.80)