Thanks, 19th Amendment!

Schoolhouse rock the vote today -- because we can

By Mary Elizabeth Williams

Senior Writer

Published November 3, 2009 8:04PM (EST)

Every year on the first Tuesday of November, I tell my daughters about their great-grandmother Mary and her sister Elizabeth, who were born in country where women didn't have the right to vote. The United States.

Then I drag them off to our polling place, where sometimes we breeze right in and sometimes we wait for hours and eventually the kids get to pull the levers. I do it because my great-grandmother never got to do the same with her two daughters.  Because there are still people who think it'd be hilarious if we couldn't. Because "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."  And that's something to sing about.


By Mary Elizabeth Williams

Mary Elizabeth Williams is a senior writer for Salon and author of "A Series of Catastrophes & Miracles."

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