Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/550

534 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE vote" was a vote against it were distributed by hand and through the mail. Other circularization, posting of towns at a specified date and newspaper publicity were pushed. Much political help was secured. Both Republican and Democratic State conventions passed suffrage resolutions and preceding the Democratic nearly every county convention passed such a resolution. No work which the women did in the campaign was more effective than their election day appeal. Nearly every polling place had women watchers within and women scouts without. When- ever one party in any place denied women the privilege of watch- ing, they secured appointments as regular watchers for the other party. An amendment to the constitution of Oklahoma has to poll a majority of the highest number of votes cast in the general election. The "silent vote" is the term applied to the votes cast in the election but not on the amendment and which are counted against it. The task of arousing every man to such a degree of interest that he would remember to mark his ballot on the suffrage amendment seemed a hopeless task. Those who know the usual inattention given to any constitutional amendment by the rank and file of voters can estimate how difficult it was to get a majority of the ballots correctly marked. Early in September it was learned that the Elections Board, claiming that the Secretary of State had failed to supply the official wording of the amendment ninety days before election, did not intend to print the suffrage amendment. Through the efforts of Judge W. H. Ledbetter of Oklahoma City, who donated his services, this obstacle was overcome, and then further to increase the difficulties, the board decided to print the suffrage amendment on a separate ballot. In October it was found that soldiers had voted in seven camps but suffrage ballots had not been furnished them and thus hundreds were prevented from voting on the amendment, yet all of these were counted as voting in the negative! The attempt to hold back the returns and to get a new ruling on the meaning of the so-called "silent vote" are matters of history. On Friday after election it became apparent to the State Elections Board that the suffrage majority was piling up and there was every evidence that the amendment had won. On