Ready, set, VOTE!

Published November 03, 2008 @ 12:08PM PT

Here we are folks, tomorrow is Election Day. And no matter who you choose for office, it's important not to take your right to vote for granted.

A brief history of Women's Right to Vote in the U.S.

In 1848, at the Seneca Falls Convention in New York, activists including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott began a seventy year struggle to secure the right to vote for women. Susan B. Anthony, a native of Rochester New York, joined the cause four years later at the Syracuse Convention.

Women's suffrage activists pointed out that blacks had been granted the franchise and had not been included in the language of the United States Constitution's Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments (which gave people equal protection under the law and the right to vote regardless of their race, respectively).

During the beginning of the twentieth century, as women's suffrage gained in popularity, suffragists were subject to arrests and many were jailed. Finally, President Woodrow Wilson urged Congress to pass what became, when it was ratified in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment.

[via Women's suffrage]

Countries where women's suffrage is denied or conditioned:

Brunei — Women (and men) have been denied the right to vote or to stand for election since 1962.
Lebanon — Partial suffrage. Proof of elementary education is required for women but not for men. Voting is compulsory for men but optional for women.
Saudi Arabia — No suffrage for women. The first local elections ever held in the country occurred in 2005. Women were not given the right to vote or to stand for election, although suffrage may be granted by 2009.
United Arab Emirates — Limited, but it will be fully expanded by 2010.
Vatican City — No suffrage for women

So let's honor those brave activists on Election Day and exercise our right to vote! And while you're at it, don't forget to Tweet the Vote.

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Comments (1)

It still blows my mind that there were people AGAINST women's right to vote!! And some of those people were women!

WOMEN: GET OUT & VOTE!!!

Posted by Lisa Smolen on 11/03/2008 @ 03:19PM PT
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Dorothee Royal-Hedinger is a web video producer, blogger and experienced New Media Strategist specializing in nonprofit outreach. She is the founder and host of OrganicNation.tv and runs the video magazine Fresh Cut. She enjoys biking, guerrilla gardening and sustainable design. You can follow her on Twitter @DorotheeRH.