After years of seeking to be a polling place, famous suffragist Susan B. Anthony’s home in Rochester, NY will serve as a polling place for early voting of the 2024 presidential election. It is a “full circle” event, considering Anthony was arrested in 1872 for casting her vote for president. The parlor of the historic place is the same place she was informed she must go downtown to be arrested. Anthony would later be fined $100, which she refused to pay. In her defense, she made a passionate plea: “It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen’s rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any state to deny.”

The home has since become a National Historic Landmark and museum. “The point wasn’t to celebrate this great icon of Susan B. Anthony. It was about the cause to which she dedicated her whole life and that we believe is still essential and important. This is right in line with our mission,” said Deborah L. Hughes, president and CEO of the Susan B. Anthony Museum & House.

Serving as a polling place has been a dream since 2020. The house, however, faced a number of setbacks as it pursued polling place status, including the fact that the home was not built to contain large groups of people at a time. The home’s carriage house was remodeled with a second door to accommodate state election officials’ desires for a second exit as a safety measure. When it was finally able to be used for early voting in New York in March 2024, parking regulations had to be lifted to accommodate visitors to the site. Early voting for the presidential election will run until November 3. 721 people voted at the site’s first day of being open for the race between Kamala Harris and Donald J. Trump.

Election laws for early voting permit early voters to choose where they vote rather than being limited to their assigned polling station, meaning the site has been especially popular amongst women, making a sort of “pilgrimage” to the home of one of the main women responsible for the eventual passing of the 19^th Amendment, giving women the right to vote. “It’s just so cool to be able to vote at the place where Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting,” said Rebecca McGinnis. “It’s very full circle. I think about my great-grandmother coming here and not being able to vote at all, and now her great-great-granddaughter is standing in the place where Susan B. Anthony fought for women’s rights.” Anthony didn’t live to see her dream realized when the 19^th Amendment was passed in 1920, 14 years after she died. She is buried at the Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, NY.