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Voters flock to women’s suffragist leader Susan B. Anthony’s grave on Election Day

Click to play video: 'People gather at suffragist leader Susan B. Anthony grave on Election Day'
People gather at suffragist leader Susan B. Anthony grave on Election Day
People gather at suffragist leader Susan B. Anthony grave on Election Day – Nov 8, 2016

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The New York cemetery where women’s suffragist leader Susan B. Anthony is buried will extend its hours on Election Day to give people more time to visit her grave.

Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren says visiting Anthony’s grave has become an Election Day “rite of passage for many citizens.” She says with Democrat Hillary Clinton as the first woman nominated by a major political party to run for president it’s appropriate to keep Mount Hope Cemetery open later Tuesday night.

People visit the grave of women’s suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony on U.S. Election Day at Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York November 8, 2016. Reuters/Adam Fenster

The cemetery usually closes at 5:30 p.m. An entrance near Anthony’s grave is being kept open until 9 p.m. Temporary lights are being installed, but visitors are being encouraged to bring flashlights.

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Video from WROC-TV shows a steady stream of people at Rochester’s Mount Hope cemetery decorating Anthony’s grave with “I Voted” stickers and American flags. Some are leaving yellow roses, which was a symbol of the women’s suffrage movement.

Kiernan Playford of Rochester poses for a photo at the grave of women’s suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony on U.S. Election Day at Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York November 8, 2016. Reuters/Adam Fenster

Among the visitors was Nora Rubel, the director of the Susan B. Anthony Institute at the University of Rochester. She tells the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle that she went to the polls and the grave with her two daughters in order to share the experience.

Anthony died in Rochester in 1906, 14 years before women won the right to vote.

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