In Hungary the system … provided two real and important privileges for the ruling classes: The one was the exclusion of the middle classes of the non-Magyar races from all government offices and from the local county administrations, as well as from the higher spheres of cultural life. The other was the restricted suffrage, exercised with open balloting, which gave full opportunity to the dominating classes to nullify not only the political action of the national minorities but also of the pure Magyar landless peasantry and working classes.