Texas Proposition 2, Women's Suffrage Amendment (May 1919)

Texas Proposition 2
Election date May 24, 1919
Topic Suffrage
Status d Defeated
Type Constitutional amendment	Origin State legislature

Texas Proposition 2 was on the ballot as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment in Texas on May 24, 1919. It was defeated.

A "yes" vote supported this state constitutional amendment to provide women with the right to vote.

A "no" vote opposed this state constitutional amendment to provide women with the right to vote.

Election results

Texas Proposition 2
Result		Votes	Percentage
Yes		141,773	45.93%
No		166,893	54.07%

Results are officially certified.

Source

Text of measure

Ballot title

The ballot title for Proposition 2 was as follows:

“

Proposing an amendment providing that every person, male or female, subject to no constitutional disqualifications who shall have attained the age of twenty-one years shall be deemed a qualified elector.

”

Full Text

The full text of this measure is available here.

Background

State women's suffrage ballot measures

See also: State women's suffrage ballot measures

The 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was ratified on August 18, 1920. The 19th Amendment prohibited the government from denying or abridging the right to vote on account of sex. Therefore, women were guaranteed the right to vote in the U.S. Constitution.

Before the 19th Amendment, the women's suffrage movement also campaigned for changes to state constitutions to provide women with a right to vote. Suffragists Carrie Chapman Catt and Nettie Rogers Shuler, in their book Woman Suffrage and Politics (1923), wrote that state ballot measures "spun the main thread of suffrage activity" in the movement's earlier years and were seen as stepping stones to national suffrage. "I don't know the exact number of States we shall have to have," said Susan B. Anthony, "but I do know that there will come a day when that number will automatically and resistlessly act on the Congress of the United States to compel the submission of a federal suffrage amendment." When asked about federal support for women's suffrage in 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt advised the suffrage movement to "Go, get another State."

Between 1867 and August 18, 1920, 54 ballot measures to grant women's suffrage were on the ballot in 30 states. Fifteen (15) of the ballot measures were approved, giving women the right to vote in 15 states. Since women did not have suffrage until after the ballot measures were approved, male voters decided the outcome of suffrage ballot measures.

Map of states that voted on suffrage ballot measures

The following is a map of which states approved and which states rejected women's suffrage ballot measures before the 19th Amendment. Suffrage was on the ballot at least once in 30 of 48 states (Alaska and Hawaii were not states until 1959). Of the 15 states that passed suffrage ballot measures, eight failed to pass measures on their first attempts. In Oregon and South Dakota, for example, suffrage measures were placed before voters at six elections before one was passed. In Utah and Wyoming, voters decided and approved women's suffrage as one provision of a ballot measure to adopt a state constitution. You can click on a state to learn more about the number of women's suffrage ballot measures that were voted on and in what years in that state.

Path to the ballot

See also: Amending the Texas Constitution

A two-thirds vote was needed in each chamber of the Texas State Legislature to refer the constitutional amendment to the ballot for voter consideration.

See also

1919 Measures

• 1919 Measures
• Sex and gender issues on the ballot
• Women's suffrage on the ballot
• 1919 legislative sessions

Texas

• Texas ballot measures
• Texas ballot measure laws

News and analysis

• Ballot measure lawsuits
• Ballot measure readability
• Ballot measure polls

External links

• Texas Proposition 2