SoylentNews

The Petticoat Rebellion: Women 'Hack' an Election

posted by takyon on Monday December 05 2016, @09:00PM   
from the on-this-day dept.

Gaaark writes:

THE PETTICOAT REBELLION OF 1916
WOMEN GAIN RIGHT TO VOTE, SUCCEED IN OVERTHROWING GOVERNMENT

Or something like that, might have been Newspaper Headlines of the day.

The real story is that on December 5th, 1916, the polls opened at 8:00am in the small town of Umatilla, Oregon, for a municipal election. And there was not a woman in sight.
Until.

At 2pm, the women showed up in droves and with write-in ballots, they proceeded to elect an all-woman council: a coup d'etat, of sorts.

The story is at:
https://www.damninteresting.com/the-petticoat-rebellion-of-1916/
http://mentalfloss.com/article/63262/laura-starcher-and-petticoat-revolution-1916

---

Original Submission

• Re:interesting factoid... (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:46AM

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:46AM (#437553)

  Yes, but in most states laws still specified white male landowners.

  Ignoring the religious tests, people under 21, quantity of land requirement, poll taxes, etc. approximately 10% to 20% of the population could vote. There were numerous restrictions to voting

  "The 1797 law shows that women could, and did vote during the Founding period. In fact, it is likely that women voted in New Jersey even before 1797. The state Constitution’s vague guarantee to “all inhabitants” probably allowed women to vote in the 1780s. Certainly, women’s suffrage was not a controversial issue in the state: the 1790 voting law was approved with only three dissenting votes in the Assembly. Despite this, women apparently did not vote in large numbers until after the passage of the 1797 law. There is no record of any public discourse on women voting until a 1797 legislative race in Elizabethtown, when the local women turned out en masse to decide a close election.

  Women voted in large numbers until 1807, when the Assembly passed a law limiting suffrage to free white males. The 1807 law was not seen as specifically hostile to women; instead, it was intended to clarify the Constitution’s guarantee of the franchise to “all inhabitants.” Because some objected that “all inhabitants” could allow slaves and aliens to vote, the Assembly acted to clarify the state’s voting requirements. Interestingly, the women of New Jersey did not object to their exclusion with any rigor; they did not lobby or protest against the law."

  http://www.heritage.org/initiatives/first-principles/primary-sources/new-jersey-recognizes-the-right-of-women-to-vote [heritage.org]

  Parent