Matilde Hidalgo de Prócel (1889–1974) was the first woman in Latin America to vote in a national election, casting her ballot in Ecuador in 1924 after successfully arguing that the constitution's silence on female voters did not constitute a prohibition. Ecuador honored her again with this 2023 issue as part of a broader commemorative circulation series — notable given that Ecuador abandoned its own currency in 2000 and has used the U.S. dollar ever since, meaning these pieces circulate as official collector-oriented tokens rather than transactional coinage.
Matilde Hidalgo de Prócel (1889–1974) was the first woman in Latin America to vote in a national election, casting her ballot in Ecuador in 1924 after successfully arguing that the constitution's silence on female voters did not constitute a prohibition. Ecuador honored her again with this 2023 issue as part of a broader commemorative circulation series — notable given that Ecuador abandoned its own currency in 2000 and has used the U.S. dollar ever since, meaning these pieces circulate as official collector-oriented tokens rather than transactional coinage.