n and women scouts without. Whenever one
party in any place denied women the privilege of watching, 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 Saturday
it was reported that a member of the State Elections Board in
Oklahoma City had called up some chairmen of county elections
boards, asking that they open the sealed returns and send a
second report counting from the "stubs," which would include the
mutilated and spoiled ballots, so as to increase further the
number of the "silent votes." At that time the suffrage
headquarters had received returns from 63 out of 77 counties,
showing a majority of 21,000 of the votes cast on the amend