Suffrage

In our continuing homeschool study of the Constitution, yesterday we were working through Amendments 11-15. One is on suffrage. A workbook question was "What is suffrage?" Of course, they thought the correct answer was "the right to vote." But I was caught off-guard. What about morning suffrages and evening suffrages in the hymnal? Those are prayers -- the psalm versicles used daily. After a wee bit o' etymological digging, our best guess is that "suffrage" must basically mean to "speak out." We may speak out politically with our vote. Or we may speak out scripture before the throne of God as we pray. We aren't sure if we're right. But we're trying to make sense of how these two words must be related somewhere far far back in their beginnings.