THE WOMEN'S VOTE IN AMERICA

Taupo Times, Volume I, Issue 31, 13 August 1952, Page 7

THE WOMEN'S VOTE IN AMERICA

BIG FACTOR IN COMING ELECTION \ I "We wil! remaiit out of the j unioit a hundred years ratiher than ccfme in without woman suffrage!" The above message was wired in 1890 to the U.S. Congress by the Legislature of the westera territory of Wyoming when it appeared that Wyoming might not b® admitted because it had granted (in 1869) the first gaurantee of equal suffrage to American women. But Gongress £&pitulated and shortly after the niessage was sent, Wyoming became the Nation's 44th. State, the first to be admitted with a woman suffrage elause in its constitution. Women got the vote in New Zealand three years later, but it was not Until 30 years later, in 1920 that women of the United States won Nation-wide sjuffrage. The 19th. Amendment to the United States Constitution was proclaimed on August 26, 1920, guaranteeing- them full voting privileges. Since the Amendment:s adoption, American women have taken a g-row-ing interest in U.S. elections. They were able to vote for the first time throughout the United States at the Presidential elections in November, 1920. With almost 2,000,000 more women than men eligible voters this year in the United 'States, they wTill have an influential role in the Presidential elections. "American women could elect the next President of the United States if they took advantage of their superior numbers," commented the Christian Science Monitor, a world--circulated fnewspaper puhlished in

the United States. In both of the Naucn's two major political parties — the Democrats and the Republicans — women are allowed equal representation with men on their national committees and in the majority of state and local party committees. In the forthcoming elections, plans are being made for the first time to make a national count of the actual number of ballots cast by women votors. Women members of the Democratic party made a spot sampling at voting booths in 1948. They discovered that women outvoted men two to one in the State of Minnesota. They found that women represented 65 per cent of the vote cast in the State of Ohio and 52 per cent in the State of Iowa.