The Day Seattle Women Lost the Vote
In a bombshell ruling that blindsided the territory, the Supreme Court struck down the 1883 law that first granted Washington women the right to cast a ballot.
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.
Olympia, Feb. 3—The Supreme Court of Washington Territory has declared the woman suffrage act null and void. The decision, in the case of 'Harland vs. Territory,' holds that the law had a defective title, as the organic act requires that the object of a law be stated in its title. The decision was rendered by Justices Turner and Langford, with Justice Hoyt dissenting.
“The act conferring the ballot upon women null and void.”
This 1887 ruling was a massive legal setback for the suffrage movement in the Pacific Northwest, effectively disenfranchising thousands of women overnight. It would take over two decades of renewed organizing and legal maneuvering before Washington women finally secured the permanent right to vote in 1910.
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