Woman served as judge of elections for 65 years
ALLEGHENY TWP — State officials Monday commemorated the 100th anniversary of Pennsylvania's approval of the 19th Amendment that would eventually give women the right to vote.
And for 65 of those years, Nancy Stowe, 89, of Allegheny Township recorded those votes as an election judge.
She just wishes more people — men and women — would exercise their right to go to the polls.
“I've been working voting for 65 years,” said Stowe. “I started at 21. We needed a judge for elections.”
Stowe manned the polling station at Six Points, tallying the ballots cast by the township's 313 voters in days that lasted from 6 a.m. when the polls opened to midnight when she returned home after taking the ballots to Butler.
Stowe made $7 a day for her efforts at first, although the pay increased to $200 by her last election.
Despite the hours, she said she enjoyed the work.
“I loved to talk to the people. It's nice to get to know the people,” she said.
The fall 2018 election was her last as an election judge, Stowe said, adding a back injury she got mowing the yard made it hard for her to keep up her duties.
“I really liked to do it, but I'm not as bright as I used to be. You get old, you forget things,” said Stowe who will be 90 in November.
The fall 2018 election was the first one in which Brook Schaefers, 18, cast a ballot.
And the Youngstown State University biology major and Slippery Rock High School graduate isn't taking voting lightly.
Schaefers said, “It's very important that we have the right to vote.
“Even though it is only one vote, it is my vote and I still feel I have a voice in the election and that's very important to me,” said Schaefers.
Stowe managed not only to oversee elections but to vote in them, too. Last week, she received a certificate of membership in the state Voting Hall of Fame for voting in 50 elections in a row.
Stowe believes it's important for people to vote and wishes more people would exercise their right.
After all, it's only been 100 years since women were finally allowed to vote.
“A century ago today, in this building, the commonwealth became the seventh state to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” Acting Pa. Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said in Monday's ceremony in Harrisburg. “I am proud of Pennsylvania's early embrace of women's suffrage. We helped lead the way for the rest of the nation.”
The 19th Amendment became law across the United States more than a year after Pennsylvania's vote. In August 1920, the requirement that three-fourths of states ratify the amendment was finally attained with Tennessee's vote. Eight days later — on August 26,1920 — U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.
“When my mother and father were living, women weren't voting,” said Stowe.
Today, it's not the law keeping people from the polls.
“People just don't care. I always tell them it's important to vote,” said Stowe but added it was getting hard to get people to help at the polling station in recent years.
Schaefers said she doesn't see that apathy toward voting reflected in her peers.
“We talk about it a lot in college. It's a big topic of conversation,” she said. “They are not apathetic.”
