The Fight for the Schoolhouse Ballot
When women in Olympia were finally allowed to vote in a school board election, they turned out in force, defying expectations and voting for education against the grain of local political orthodoxy.
On the occasion of a former vote on the school tax question, when it was voted down by a three-fourths majority, we expressed profound surprise and disappointment that so many women voted against the tax. We now wish to put the matter on record that nearly all the women, who are advocates of the enfranchisement of women, voted last Saturday at the recent special election for schools—not a few of them against their husbands. Women went to the polls singly, in pairs, and in numbers, and selected their tickets and voted as intelligently, and certainly more quietly than men ordinarily do, and not by look, word or deed was any woman offended. Experience proves that women will vote if given the chance. Last Saturday there were 210 votes polled, and of those 62 were cast by women. While some critics argue that women cannot fight or serve on juries, the fact remains that 62 women stepped up to cast ballots, demonstrating their civic capacity despite being excluded from the general franchise.
“Woman's influence is civilizing and ennobling, and it will be felt in that way at the polls and public places as well as in the home circle.”
This Olympia dispatch captures the early, fragile days of woman's suffrage in Washington Territory (1883). While the national movement for the vote is well-remembered, these local school-tax battles were the 'testing grounds' where women first proved they could organize and influence civic budgets.
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