Votes for Women: Campaigning to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment

This review of Votes for Women is featured on Episode 134 of The Five By. Check out the rest of the episode, which also features HerStory, Detective Rummy, Steam Up and Don’t Talk to Strangers.

There are very few board games where I can imagine myself in. Did I, as a young Filipina lady growing up in Los Angeles, ever dream about trading in the Mediterranean or breeding sheep in the German countryside? No, of course not. But joining in the women’s suffrage movement and being eternally grateful for those people who helped usher in my right — and many other women’s rights — to vote? Sign me up! That’s a game I wholeheartedly support. Votes for Women, a game that came out in 2022, is equally educational and enjoyable. 

And if you are the type of gamer that thinks, oh, this game is just so political (an actual review I’ve seen online about this), well feel free to skip ahead. Just move along, sir. 

Votes for Women, designed by Tory Brown and art by Brigette Indelicato and Marc Rodrigue the second, is published by Fort Circle Game, which designs historical games with a particular focus on United States political and military history.

Indeed, the women’s suffrage movement that ended with the women’s right to vote in the United States happened just a little over a hundred years ago. That is not too long ago in the grand scheme of American history, and something we should work hard to not let the younger generation forget and take for granted.

Votes for Women is a card-drive game that plays 1 to 4 players in about 60-75 minutes. I’ve only played this game as two players — one for the suffrage movement and the other for the opposition — but you can play this game with either two suffrage players and/or two opposition players. 

Having that kind of flexibility is great because I foresee this game as being introduced to gamers and non-gamers alike. And having teams for two suffrage players can make the barrier to entry for playing this CDG less daunting. Additionally, the rulebook is 12 pages. How amazing is that? How many historical games can you say has a rulebook that’s easy to follow?

The game is beautifully designed, with a map of the U.S. and many wooden pieces that include an array of campaigners, green checkmarks, red X’s, influence cubes, and an assortment of dice. The game also includes a historical supplement and copies of historical documents during that time. Pretty neat for those who want to learn more about this!

The goal of the game is two-fold. The suffragists want to push to Congress the 19th Amendment and campaign to have 36 states ratify it. The Opposition will try to prevent Congress from proposing the amendment or if they fail to do that, have 13 states reject the amendment. Each side receives their own deck of cards to play during the game, which, if you’ve ever played other CDGs, eliminates the fraught decision making with playing cards that would benefit your opponent. The tension in this game comes from the tug-of-war campaigning across the U.S. 

Cards are phased with events during the early, middle and late part of the movements, complete with snippets of history and/or historical figures in the flavor text. This shows that a lot of research and care went into the development of this game, and not just slapping a theme on a tried-and-true mechanism commonly seen in wargames. 

Game play goes for six turns, in which there are 6 rounds for each turn. On each round, the suffrage player or the opposition player plays a card either for the event, to campaign, to organize or to lobby. Players start with 7 cards each turn.

Playing a card for an event is just that. Follow what’s written on the card and then end your turn. To campaign, players roll a specific dice based on how many campaigners they have on the board, and then they add cubes to those regions that the campaigners are in. To organize, players discard a card and collect a number of support buttons based on how many campaigners they have on the board. And lastly, to lobby, players roll a specific die and if they get a 6, they can either remove or add a congressional marker to the track on the board. The suffragists need 6 of these to achieve one of the victory conditions, whereas the opposition doesn’t want the suffragist side to send the 19th amendment to Congress. 

There are state cards also in play. If a player places a fourth influence cube in a state that’s in play, they gain the state card and can use its benefit on a future turn. There are also strategy cards that also offer a benefit that players can bid on at the start of a turn using support buttons. 

There is a lot of strategy in the order of the cards you play. The suffragist side is also racing to send the 19th Amendment to Congress as it’ll lock down states who vote for it once four cubes are placed into that state. The opposition side, though clearly on the wrong side of history, feels like it has an uphill battle fighting against the two suffragist movements, which are represented by the purple and yellow cubes. For the suffragists though, either cube works toward their influence goals. The suffragists also start with two campaigners on the board, increasing the amount of resources and the ability to campaign across the map. 

If the game reaches the end of turn 6, and the suffragists haven’t sent the 19th Amendment to Congress, they immediately lose. If it did get sent to Congress, and neither side has placed all their x’s or checkmarks onto the board, players enter Final Voting where they will go state by state w;ho’s undecided and roll a die to see who wins that state. If there are influence cubes on that state, they’re added to the dice roll. 

The player who places their final X or checkmark wins the game. If I’m being honest, it’s such a great feeling when the Suffragists win, and it’s pretty defeating when the Opposition wins. 

For those people not familiar with the United States’ geography, this game can be a little difficult to navigate but the game provides a reference sheet to help you with states’ locations. 

There’s a beautiful quote from the game designer Tory Brown included in the game’s historical supplement book. It reads “I created Votes for Women as a love letter to one of the most successful movements in American history.” Votes for Women is a wonderful love letter that everyone should dive into. 

I got a chance to meet Tory in person at SDHist Con, and it was such a pleasure hearing her talk about the design process and what inspired her. And just a few days ago, the convention announced that Votes for Women is the winner of this year’s Summit Award.

And that’s Votes for Women! This is Meeple Lady for The Five By. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tiktok as Meeple Lady, or on my website, boardgamemeeplelady.com. Thanks for listening and don’t forget to vote! Bye!