Ninety-nine years ago today, women across the United States voted in the first national election after the ratification of the 19th Amendment. This coming year, in 2020, we will celebrate the centennial of this important amendment that ensured “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
This vote was given to women in some of the original American colonies, but by 1807 it had been revoked unilaterally. In Utah, where my ancestors migrated to escape persecution and where I now live, women were able to vote by 1870, but voting in general elections in all states was only assured when a youthful Tennessee state legislator went rogue and heeded his mother’s call to “be a good boy” and vote for the 19th Amendment. Getting to that point required women willing to march in the streets, endure hunger strikes and forced feedings, and even to fill jail cells.
Do the women of our day remember this decadeslong battle and appreciate its hard-won fruits? Do we honor the women who secured our right to vote? Do we vote with the passion of those who cast the first ballots?
My great-grandmother Georgia McCoy Henderson knew what it was to be denied the vote. She was a young widow when she cast her first vote in 1915. When, as an octogenarian and no longer able to drive and her mail-in ballot failed to materialize, she called the local paper and let off some steam. “I was 28 before you darn men decided we women were smart enough to vote. Now I’m 81 years old and … they tell me down at the election department I can’t get (a ballot). I’ve just about used up all my cuss words.”
Fortunately, a reporter decided driving Georgia to the polls wasn’t a bad trade for a handful of peppery statements from a woman who maintained a running commentary of the candidates and issues, from dog control to garbage levy to presidential politics. When the reporter asked Georgia if she was glad she had made the effort to cast a ballot, she beamed, “You’re (darn) tootin’ I am!”
I wonder what great-grandma Georgia would say today. The integrity of our elections has been compromised. The Russian government interfered in the last presidential election “in sweeping and systematic fashion,” but our president recognizes this only as an affront to his ego, not the attack on our democracy that it is. Our elected representatives have failed to produce serious legislation to offset another round of interference. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently joked to a Moscow audience about interfering again: “I’ll tell you a secret: Yes, we’ll definitely do it. Just don’t tell anyone.”
The Federal Election Commission is not fully staffed and near shutdown. And reports are being publicized that social media disinformation campaigns are already well underway against the 2020 elections.
As a descendant of Georgia and of Utah suffragists, as one committed to this unique American experiment, and as a woman, I hate to think that the battle that took generations to win may be lost in my generation. Will the women of my day allow polling systems to be rendered insecure and our nation to be sundered by hate? Will we remain quiescent while millions have been misled by misinformation and millions more have their votes discounted by gerrymandering? If we value the vote, will we quietly stand by while others are dissuaded or disempowered from even filling out their ballots? If we do not act now, will there be meaning next year as we celebrate the centennial of the 19th Amendment?
Women across this nation and throughout Utah must not forget the right for which our foremothers fought, fasted and prayed. We must demand legislation to protect the integrity of our elections. And we must shine a light on attacks on the very elections from which we were barred only 99 years ago.
Lisa Rampton Halverson is an adjunct professor of humanities and education at Brigham Young University.