Women voting at the polls in New Jersey.
Illustration by Howard Pyle.
Lebrecht Music & Arts/Alamy Stock Photo
Women’s Early Voting in New Jersey
however, where women actually voted. Unlike their compatriots in the surrounding area,
in the early nineteenth century some women and African
Americans cast ballots in New Jersey. According to the
estate in the same, and have resided within the county in
which they claim a vote for twelve months immediately
since married women’s property rights were limited, only
with irregularities, the legislature passed an election law in
1790, which explicitly included women, referring to voters
southern counties. In 1797, another election law used this
phrasing again and expanded it to cover the whole state.
bearing women’s names shows that New Jersey women voted between 1797 and 1807.
As many as 10,000 women may have voted in New Jersey up to 1807, although records
of women voting in Middlesex County have not been yet located. Unfortunately, the
tide turned against female enfranchisement as politicians of both parties tended to blame
women when they lost, saying that women were manipulated into voting for candidates
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