We are closing in on the most important presidential election of our lifetime. Voting in this election is highly important. I strongly encourage women to vote. Their vote does matter.

I was in Washington, D.C., recently and visited the National Women’s Suffrage Museum near the U.S. Supreme Court. How vastly important was the work of the women who marched, protested and demanded the right to vote. Three of my great-aunts, Emma, Cora and Clara Wold, were actively involved in those efforts. In 1918, Clara Wold was injured and arrested while demonstrating on the U.S. Capitol steps and thrown in prison. Previously she had been arrested while meeting in front of the White House and she was put in jail, where she went on a hunger strike. The suffragists finally succeeded in 1920 in getting the vote for women.

Please don’t forget their efforts to get women the right to vote.

We must exercise our right to vote this election and future elections. It is not a duty, but a hard-won right.

Harold Payson
Falmouth