People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1893 — WOMEN CANNOT VOTE. [ARTICLE]

WOMEN CANNOT VOTE.

Michigan Female Suffrage Law Declared Unconstitutional and Told. Lansing, Mich., Oct 26.—1 n a unanimous opinion ths supreme court on Tuesday declared unconstitutional the act of the legislature conferring municipal suffrage upon women. The court says the general rule is that the source of all authority to vote at popular elections is the constitution; that the electorate is constituted by the fundamental law; that the qualifications of electors must be uniform throughout the state and that wherever the constitution has prescribed the qualifications of electors they cannot be changed or added to by the legislature, or otherwise, except by an amendment to the constitution. Section 1 of article 7 of the constitution which provides that electors shall be male citizens and entitled to vote is quoted and the statement made that its terms are applicable to all elections. The court says that to empower the legislature to confer the elective franchise upon classes of persons other than those named at some other provision must be pointed out which confers that authority in express terms or by necessary implication. Such a provision is not to be found in the constitution, hence the act of last winter was held to be void. The proceedings were instituted in Detroit in the name of Mary Stewart Coffin and others to test to the validity of the act granting women the right to vote in school, village and city elections in the state. 1