August 2024
Editor Jennifer Bales
jbales@me.com
| Co-Presidents Susan Saunders and Peggy Leech | | By Peggy Leech and Susan Saunders | Hello from the reconstructed team of Peggy Leech and Susan Saunders as Co-Presidents of the LWVBC! We’re already a month into the 2024-25 year with lots of action coming quickly. August 4, the Board members and various team leaders will have met to conduct this year’s Planning Retreat and to set goals for our league’s coming year. Stay tuned for a report in the next VOTER. Also, you will find announcements of further activities and calls for volunteers in this month’s issue. We sincerely hope you’ll find at least one item to allow you to actively participate. | LWVBC Member Mixer on August 21
| Election Volunteer Opportunities
| Calling All Boulder County Leaguers….Are you interested in becoming more involved in the League’s voter service activities for this fall’s General Election? We have many volunteer opportunities during the candidate forums we are planning in late September and early October. Your Voter Service team is still pinning down dates and locations but we will need moderators, timekeepers, ushers and question sorters. Once we have more definite information we will let you know and you can sign up on the LWVBC.org website. If you are interested in becoming more involved in voter service activities and would like to be mentored toward a leadership position please let us know.
If you think moderating might be of interest please let Josephine Porter, candidateforum@lwvbc.org , know and we can arrange a training time. Thanks and hope to see you at the LWVBC Election Kickoff, August 21, at the Junkyard Social Club.
| Election Sponsors are Signing Up!
| The Fund Development Team is thrilled to report that we already have six committed Election Sponsors. Premier Members Credit Union, Elevations Credit Union, High Plains Bank and JVA, a local company that employs one of LWVBC’s members, have all pledged to become Election Sponsors. We also have two anonymous donors! At over $3500 we have reached 25 percent of our goal!
To build on our recent success we encourage each of you to think of businesses or medical offices where you have an ongoing relationship and would feel comfortable giving the name to Mary Ann Wilner, Fund Development Director. We have letters ready to go for both business and friend sponsors. This election has sparked new interest in the LWV and we want to increase our revenue from potential new sponsors!
You can reach Mary Ann Wilner at mawlner61@gmail.com.
| Proposed All-Candidate Primary with a Top-4 Ranked Voting General Election
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A coalition of election reformers hopes to change the way Colorado conducts partisan elections (above the county level) and expects to place a citizen initiative on the November ballot. The coalition includes Unite America, Veterans for All Voters and RepresentWomen.
The basic framework is provided in an explainer linked below, provided by the League of Women Voters of Colorado.
Briefly, the current system applies to all partisan offices. Separate primary ballots are provided for each major party. Unaffiliated voters can choose which primary ballot to vote. The candidate in each contest with the most votes advances to the general election as the party’s nominee. In the general election, the candidate who receives the most votes wins.
The proposed system applies only to “covered” offices – most partisan state and federal offices but not county offices. For each “covered” office, all candidates are listed with their party label (which may be “Unaffiliated”) in a single primary ballot contest. All voters regardless of their affiliation receive the all-candidate ballot. The four candidates with the most votes in each contest advance to the general election. The winner is chosen by Instant-Runoff (ranked) voting – just as voters in the city of Boulder selected their mayor in 2023.
| Volunteer to Support Reproductive Freedom | Book Review: OUR SHARED REPUBLIC
The Case for Proportional Ranked Choice Voting in the United States House of Representatives | | By Frank and Pat Venturo of the Voting Methods Team | | In this 214-page book published in 2023, Drew Penrose clearly explains proportional representation and why and how it should be used to elect members of the U.S. House of Representatives. He purposely limits his arguments to the problems caused by using only single-member districts with “winner-take-all” elections. He asserts that those problems might be solved by creating multiple-member districts using “proportional ranked choice voting.”
Drew Penrose has a long affiliation with FairVote, a nonprofit organization and lobbying group that was founded in 1992 as Citizens for Proportional Representation. The organization evolved as an advocate for all forms of Ranked Choice Voting and they oppose other alternative voting reforms. They promote Instant-Runoff Ranked Choice Voting (IRV) in single-winner elections and the proportional Single Transferable Vote (STV) for multi-winner elections. | | | Drew Penrose uses the term “proportional ranked choice voting” throughout the book instead of STV because, as he notes, “in the United States, the term ‘ranked choice voting’ applies to all voting methods that use a ranked ballot and where votes are counted in rounds, and this project is about the form of ranked choice voting that promotes proportional representation.” (For a more complete explanation of ranked voting methods, see the LWVBC Voting Methods Team’s article, “What is RCV Anyway?”).
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By Susan Curtis
Membership count:200 | | | Welcome to these new members who joined in June and July: Margaret Goetz, Kathie Johannes, Sandi Schuessler, Rebecca Dowling, Barbara Marlin, Sue Griffith, Heidi West, and Grace Moffitt. Grace is a new student member.
We Need Your Help: This fall will be a very busy one for LWVBC with numerous events planned and lots of ways you can be of help. We need volunteers! It’s easy to sign up. On our LWVBC.org homepage, look across the black banner to Events. Select Events and then Volunteering. There will be a list of volunteer opportunities—with time slots we need to fill. Scroll down the long list of opportunities, check your calendar and then sign up. You’ll get an email reminder of the commitments you’ve made to help LWVBC. You’ll feel great about helping and meet some really terrific League members. We hope to see you soon!
League Events in August: Plan to attend the Fall Kick Off on Wednesday, August 21, from 6 - 8 p.m. at the Boulder Junkyard Social Club, 2525 Frontier Ave., Unit A, Boulder. We’ll have fun, entertainment, opportunities to learn more about LWVBC and more. Please register to attend here. You don’t want to miss the fun!
| Followup: All-American City Award | | The city of Boulder was a finalist for a 2024 All-American City award, in part due to the city’s use of Instant-Runoff Voting (IRV) in its first-ever mayoral contest in 2023. LWVBC participated in the June 8th presentation to a jury panel to highlight our educational efforts prior to the election. Although Boulder did not receive the All-American City award, the city was proud of its presentation and collaborative effort.
| LWVBC Budget Actuals as of end of Fiscal Year 2023-2024
| | By Molly Saunders and Patricia Long | | Presented here are the final budget actuals for the 2023-2024 fiscal year. Our new budget, approved by membership at the annual meeting, has been crafted to place additional emphasis on income from contributions and fundraising efforts to support our ambitious goals and reflect the increased resources we are dedicating in the current year to Empower Voters and Defend Democracy. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact Molly Saunders, our treasurer at treasurer@lwvbc.org. | | By Holly Monkman, Celeste Landry, Neal McBurnett & Pat Long | The 56th Biennial LWVUS National Convention was held June 27 - 30th in Washington DC. There were 1,279 attendees from all 50 states, DC, and the Virgin Islands both in-person and online. LWV Boulder County was represented by Celeste Landry (in-person) and Pat Long, Neal McBurnett & Holly Monkman (virtually).
Highlights of the convention include:
- 230 members visiting Capitol Hill for Lobby Day to advocate for the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. In all, 20% of Congress heard directly from the League in one day!
- Turn Up for One Person, One Vote, a discussion about the movement to abolish the Electoral College. Moderator Celina Stewart, LWVUS chief counsel, was joined by experts Carolyn Dupont, Keesha Gaskins-Nathan, and Na'ilah Amaru.
- Honoring the life of late LWVUS Board President Dr. Deborah Ann Turner, with sentiments from her niece and a tribute video.
- Remarks from LWVUS Board president Sania Irwin highlighting the power of women to persevere and make a difference in democracy.
- Incoming LWVUS CEO Celina Stewart sharing her vision for her leadership in the next era of the League's story.
- Keynote address from Kim Teehee, director of government relations for the Cherokee Nation and Delegate-designate to the U.S. Congress, who shared that “The Cherokee Nation has always believed that this country is stronger when more people have a voice, and the League of Women Voters has been a critical partner in moving towards this better future.”
- 2024 – 2026 Board president Dianna Wynn kicked off her presidency, saying, “A bigger, bolder, more powerful League of Women Voters can shape the future of our democracy.
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