Stella Courtright Stimson - Infinite Women

Born: 15 September 1862, United States
Died: Unknown
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Mary Estella Courtright Davis, Mary Estella Courtright

The following is excerpted from Infinite Women founder Allison Tyra’s book The View from the Hill: Women Who Made Their Mark After 40.

In the U.S., women laid the groundwork for protecting the electoral process before they were even allowed to participate in it. Suffragist and clubwoman Stella Courtright Stimson was 50 when she decided to take down the corrupt Terre Haute, Indiana politician Donn Roberts in 1913. By today’s standards, Roberts’s election-rigging methods were almost absurdly blatant, including using sample ballots with the top that said “Sample” torn off, outright buying votes, registering dozens of people at the same address that wasn’t even a residential building, and sending “repeaters” to vote multiple times at the same location in different outfits. But in the 1910s, they worked—not least because there was no one to stop him.
Stimson organized her fellow clubwomen—educated women who joined intellectual, artistic, and civic-minded clubs—to monitor and document the practices, which she’d seen firsthand in the 1909 elections. Despite the mountain of evidence they produced, only a registered voter—which, in Indiana, would not include women for several years yet—could operate within the system as an election inspector, clerk, or judge of elections, or be present at the counting of votes. The women proved that, for example, of the 16,000 newly registered voters shortly before the 1913 election—equal to more than 75% of the city’s entire voting-eligible population—more than 2,700 were definitely fraudulent. On election day, more than 450 volunteers were out in force, taking notes and even photographs to document the fraud. Yet when Stimson wrote to the governor, he told her to take it up with the local sheriff—who was, of course, in Roberts’s pocket.
It was only when men complained—specifically, two police officers the corrupt Mayor Roberts had ordered fired—that a local judge appointed a special prosecutor to investigate. But that judge reversed course only a few months later when Roberts arranged for him to be promoted to state probate commissioner. But the lawyer, Joseph Roach Jr., did not give up, finding an untested law that made it a federal offense when “two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten or intimidate any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” He took the case to the U.S. District Attorney, who in turn convinced a federal judge to consider the case.
Stimson and her clubwomen were ready, once again, during the 1914 election. She documented cases like voters who couldn’t recall the name they were meant to be voting under, 300 votes from African American men when only 18 were registered in the city, and a one-room saloon being the registered address for 60 voters, while another was supposedly “home” to 100 more. “Because almost every city and county official was in the conspiracy, nothing could be done but get the evidence,” Stimson commented. “It was for this, the women stayed.”
Roberts, meanwhile, complained, “The old maids and the women who wear the pants are all against me.” The women, with their evidence, prevailed. One hundred and sixteen defendants were tried and found guilty on all counts, with Roberts himself sentenced to six years in federal prison and a $2,000 fine. Stimson herself testified at the trial and the case, U.S. v. Aczel (named for the alphabetically first defendant, Alexander Aczel) was soon cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in another case affirming that the federal government was entitled to protect voters’ rights. This precedent laid the groundwork for the Voting Rights Act and prosecuting election crime in the U.S.