Seattle's First Municipal Election Under the New Registry Law
A record-breaking turnout draws thousands to the polls as two political factions clash in a pivotal city election.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The city charter of Seattle provides for an election to be held on the second Monday of July for the selection of a Mayor, City Attorney, Assessor, Chief of Police, and nine councilmen. At the last session of the Legislature, a registry law was passed, and for the past two or three weeks, the City Clerk has been busy enrolling voters, with 2,859 names registered. The day dawned warm and pleasant, and long before nine o'clock, crowds thronged the polling places. Both the Law and Order party and the Business Men's ticket placed strong candidates in the field. A large number of women were at each polling place, taking a lively interest in the proceedings. Hacks and carriages were running all day, bringing in voters from the suburbs. In the third ward, an unusual incident occurred when Mayor Struve, while attempting to cast his ballot, was challenged by John B. Denny, a member of the Law and Order Society, on the grounds that the Mayor held a homestead and therefore lacked legal residency in the city. The Mayor, furious, declared the group a 'set of cranks,' threw his ticket to the ground and stamped on it, before casting a Business Men's ticket instead. The total vote polled was nearly three times that of last year, with a total of 2,636 votes cast.
“I always thought you were a set of cranks, and now I know it.”
This 1884 election captures a moment of intense civic mobilization in Seattle, mirroring the high-stakes turnout battles the city continues to see during its own municipal cycles today. The presence of women at the polls—decades before the 19th Amendment—is a reminder that the Washington Territory was a hotbed for early voting rights activism, even as those rights were being constantly challenged by the courts.
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