The Volokh Conspiracy

I've heard that during the 19th century respected older single women, like schoolteachers, were sometimes informally permitted to vote in frontier states. No idea how widespread this was,though.

So since women have been enfranchised in this country, have they voted in greater, equal, or lesser numbers then men? Has their participation rate fallen in keeping with in keeping with the overall fall in the percentage of Americans turning out to vote, or has their participation rate bucked the downward trend, either holding about steady or rising, perhaps as a result of the women's rights movement? With Hillary in the race, are more women voting in these primaries than have in the past; with Obama in the race, are more African-Americans voting than in the past? If anyone knows, I'd be interested in the answers.

There's something to be said for only allowing property owners to vote, at least in such matters as property taxes.

Makes me think of Utah where women had the vote, the federal government took it away, then came back and changed their minds.

Interestingly enough, most textbooks only report the second date for women having the vote in Utah, not the first.

There's something to be said for only allowing property owners to vote, at least in such matters as property taxes.

Hm. Should only those with income get to vote on income taxes? Only those who buy things get to vote on sales taxes? Only those with capital gains get to vote on capital gains taxes?

What about deductions? Do only homeowners get to vote on that deduction? Etc. It seems to me that it could get very complicated very quickly to define the relevant voting group.

I think you're focusing only on the income side and not the expense side. Since we all have a say in the expenditures, we should all have a say in the collections.

Women voting in Syria: as I understand it, the actual story is quite different from that stated above. During Syria's brief period of independence between the collapse of Ottoman rule in 1918 and the imposition of the French mandate in 1920, some reformers wanted to give women the vote. Conservatives vehemently opposed such a move. It was a big question in the Syrian parliament. King Faysal I, interestingly, sided with the reformers. When the French came, Faysal was kicked out and the parliament was dissolved, ending the conversation.

Under the French mandate, Syrian women certainly did not have political rights; recall that metropolitan France did not give women the vote until 1945!

I refer you to Libby Thompson's excellent Colonial Citizens (2000).

Bama1L,

Interesting about Syria. Do I understand then that in 1918-1920 women never actually got the vote, it was just discussed?

Bill, that's my recollection. Unfortunately I don't have the cited book or my notes from grad school to hand. But my recollection is that, after the French came, all the political actors in Syria decided to take women's suffrage off the table.

It occurs to me that your friend was probably thinking of the period from 1949 to 1953, when Syrian women had limited suffrage. The coup of 1953 ended that. I think women got the vote again in the early seventies and still have it.