You Can’t Put I Voted Stickers on Susan B Anthony’s Headstone This Year
It's tradition to place I Voted stickers on Susan B Anthony's grave at Mt. Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York. But not this year.
Years of stickers and cleaning have damaged the headstone. So this year, there's a plastic covering that's been placed over the headstone to protect the limestone marker. Once a sleeve fills up with stickers, it'll be removed and a new one will cover the headstone. "Many people considered this to be a desecration of a family gravestone, because a gravestone is private property," Patricia Corcoran, president of Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery told the Democrat and Chronical.
Giant thank you cards will also be placed beside the headstone that visitors can also place I Voted stickers on.
Nearly 150 years ago, 50 years before women won the right to vote, Susan B. Anthony cast her ballot in the 1872 presidential election a few miles from her final resting place in Rochester. She was arrested, tried, convicted and fined $100. Anthony vowed she wouldn't pay the penalty. And she never did.
President Donald Trump pardoned Anthony on the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution giving women the right to vote.
Susan B Anthony's grave can be found in Section C, Plot 93 at Mt Hope Cemetery, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.
If you're headed there to add your 'I Voted' sticker to the headstone, just follow the crowd. People stand in long lines on election day to take part in the tradition. 12,000 people visited Susan B Anthony's grave during the 2016 Presidential election.
Don't forget your mask and remember to remain 6 feet apart.