Paper Money

Voters picked Harriet Tubman for the $20, so what happens now?

Harriet Tubman was the favorite among Women on 20s poll voters to replace Andrew Jackson on thee $20 Federal Reserve note.

Image courtesy of Women on 20s

The big story of the day has been the announcement that Harriet Tubman topped the Women on 20s poll to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 Federal Reserve note. 

And though much of social media seems to think that means Tubman's spot on the note is now secure, it is far from it. Women on 20s has now moved into its petition phase, during which it will lobby President Barack Obama to make the change in time for the 100th anniversary of women being given the right to vote in 2020.

"Fortunately, it doesn’t take a messy act of Congress to change a portrait on paper money," the Women on 20s website reads. "It requires an order from the Secretary of the Treasury. With the stroke of a pen, the President can direct the Treasury Secretary to make the change."

In recent years, though, changes to U.S. paper money have taken yeas between the first efforts at a redesign and the release of the new notes into circulation, as Coin World's William T. Gibbs reports.

Read the Women on 20s petition here.

On Twitter, Women on 20s has started a new hashtag, #dearmrpresident, for supporters to utilize. And there's a video too:


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