Aug 15, 2020 3 min read

In the 2018 midterm elections, 53% of voters were women and 47% were men.

In every presidential election since 1964, the number of female voters has exceeded the number of male voters.

The simple fact is that women are just a bit better than men when it comes to voting.

No one alive today remembers a time when women were not allowed to vote. But, in the whole scheme of things, it was not that long ago that only men had the right to say how their government should be shaped, not only in the United States, but in other countries that purported to be democracies. And not all men, but white men, when you consider the roadblocks that were placed in the way of African Americans when it came to voting up until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. The 20th century may have had its share of horrors, but it also saw the recognition of the rights of women and minorities, and the expansion of citizenship to those groups. Of course, battles for full equality continue to this hour, but the United States is a markedly different country than it was 50 years ago or 100 years ago.

It was, in fact, 100 years ago this week that women in the United States were given the right to vote as a result of the ratification of the 19th Amendment. As a story in today’s edition of the Observer-Reporter details, the right of women to vote in the United States had been granted on a patchwork basis starting in the 1860s, but with the addition of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, all women over the age of 21 could, in theory, be fully part of the democratic process.

And it took a long time and no small amount of agitation for women to receive full voting rights in this country. An early activist was Washington native Charlotte LeMoyne Wills, who formed the National Woman Suffrage Association along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Wills herself never lived to see the 19th Amendment added to the Constitution, since she died in 1908. But her efforts, and those of other women throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, demonstrate that, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

The struggles of women to have their voices heard should make all of us appreciate the right to vote, and it’s a right we should not take for granted. That right can be taken from us not through poll taxes or tests, but when polling places are closed, when voters are forced to stand in long lines or when poll “watchers” have the right to harass and intimidate voters, and the ability to cast a ballot by mail is limited.

With that in mind, the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment is reason for celebration – and for vigilance.