October 2024
Editor Jennifer Bales
jbales@me.com
| Co-Presidents Susan Saunders and Peggy Leech | By Peggy Leech and Susan Saunders | Election activities are in full swing!
We have many events scheduled, including candidate forums, ballot issue presentations, and voter outreach activities. VOTE411 will go “live” very soon. All these activities, under the direction of our Voter Service Director Stacie Johnson, involve many team members and hundreds of hours of volunteer work. Our Membership Team, under the direction of Susan Curtis, provides support for many of the in-person events.
Cassandra Barnhart, our Youth Engagement Director, is working with the County Clerk’s office to provide Ballot Processing tours for high school students from Longmont. Pirie Jensen, leader of the Energizing Young Voters program, is working tirelessly with CU students on-campus. Jackie Pine spearheaded a postcard-writing campaign to encourage younger voters to make a plan to vote, and to use VOTE411 as a resource when they vote.
Mary Ann Wilner and her Fund Development Team are busy raising funds for LWVBC through Election Season sponsors and through grant-writing. Please consider becoming a sponsor or asking your favorite business to sponsor our activities.
We know that there are many more members providing support—it takes all of us! Thank you.
| Ballot Processing Tour October 22 at Noon
Registration required - space is limited | Join our ballot processing tour!
Tuesday, October 22, 2024
Noon (allow about 1 hour)
Boulder County Clerk & Recorder's Office
1750 33rd Street, Boulder
Open to members (+ one non-member friend) first. We will open to more non-members if we have space.
For more information and to register, visit: Event Signup Here | Voter Services Team in Action | Voter Services Director Stacie Johnson and her team have been leading a monumental effort to register voters, including multiple voter information and registration drives, the Why I Vote page and video, forums for ballot issues and candidates, and getting Vote411.org up to speed.
The LWVBC webpage dedicated to WHY I VOTE-VOICES OF OUR COMMUNITY is linked here:
On Tuesday, September 17 (National Voter Registration Day), LWVBC volunteers were at the Trident Booksellers & Cafe midday and then at Avery Brewing during the late afternoon/evening hours. September 18, they had a voter registration table at the Boulder Public Library (the Canyon Theater Gallery Area) for much of the day and then a crew of volunteers led by Jeanine Pow helped register new citizens following their naturalization ceremony that occurred at the library's Canyon Theater. Our Voter Service team was honored to register these brand-new citizens to vote after they took their Oath of Citizenship on September 19 at the Boulder Public Library. Learn more about their stories from CPR News.
The crew also volunteered at Runners Roost, the Louisville Public Library, and another new citizen ceremony in Longmont.
Below of some pictures of enthusiastic voter services volunteers at work. For questions or to volunteer please contact Stacie at voterservice@lwvbc.org. | Energizing Young Voters Activities | The Energizing Young Voters team, led by Pirie Jensen, has also been on fire.
September 17, CU, Athletics Dept., 125 students attendees. EYV spoke with each one regarding registration and inspiring others to vote using Energizing Young Voters Instagram posts. Volunteers: Bridget Church, Barbara Hill, Pirie Jensen
September 20, Women's Empowerment Event, 100+ attendees, primarily women students, EYV spoke regarding registration and inspiring others to vote using Energizing Young Voters Instagram posts. Panels speakers included: CU Alumni, Sports Illustrated Athlete Swimsuit Models, World Wide Entertainment Women wrestlers who were interested in voting and following Instagram posts. Volunteers: Bridget Church, Barbara Hill, Pirie Jensen, Sandy Fisher, Maria Slater, Chris Slater
September 24th Front Range Community College Presentation, 19 attendees. Volunteers: Rocio Villalobos-Qunitero, Chris Slater, Stacie Johnson, Pirie Jensen.
Photographs of EYV at work below. For more information or to volunteer, please contact Pirie at piriejean@gmail.com. | The VOTE411 system for Boulder County is getting ready for the 2024 General Election. All Races and Candidates are entered into the system and invitations have been sent to all Candidates requesting that they participate by answering policy questions on their dedicated Candidate page.
In Colorado, VOTE411 will go live for voters on October 11th as ballots are mailed. Please use the system to inform your voting and encourage family, friends, colleagues, etc. to check it out. The system is easy to use – just go to vote411.org, enter your address, and the system will display every race on your ballot with links to information provided by each candidate. VOTE411 is available nationwide, so any voter can access their ballot information.
In the 2020 election, almost a million voters in Colorado used VOTE411 for voting information along with information on registering to vote, updating an existing registration and location of polling places.
The League of Women Voters is a trusted source for election information. VOTE411 is part of that reputation. Spread the word!
VOTE411 is committed to ensuring voters have the information they need to successfully participate in every election. Whether it's local, state or federal, every election is important to ensuring our laws and policies reflect the values and beliefs of our communities.
|  |
By Susan Curtis
Membership count:211 | | | Welcome to these new members who joined in September: Elisa Greenberg, Kathryn Coleman, Amanda Welch, Barbara Noblin and Jyoti Sharp. You may have already met several of these new members as they have volunteered to help at LWVBC events.
The Leaves are Changing and so are Software and Dues:
In May, we voted to change our bylaws because of changes coming at the national level to grow membership, increase our ability to advocate for issues and continue to be welcoming and inclusive of all. All members of LWV in the United States will use a new database management software called ChapterSpot to collect dues, remind members of renewal dates, and enable joining as a new member, tasks previously done at the local level. Our local Boulder County League and many others Leagues in the U.S. who use ClubExpress will continue to do so for tracking local membership, events, support and the other features you find on our lwvbc.org website.
There will be changes to how dues are distributed and you will have choices as to where donations you make above the dues amount go. We expect this software conversion and these changes to occur in the January to February timeframe. To learn more about the changes anticipated and the reasons for making these changes, please check the Upcoming Changes page or go to the LWVBC homepage, select News and then select Upcoming Changes.
For now, you need do nothing different. If your renewal date is coming up, you will be notified as always. Please renew promptly. You may choose to add a donation with your renewal and the entire donation amount will go to our local league, LWVBC. We will continue to keep you updated on any changes as well as actions you may need to take.
| Living Wage Campaign Update
| By Deborah Hayes and Peggy Leech | City and town councils in all five Boulder County municipalities have now heard presentations of economic data and community engagement on raising the minimum wage to a self-sufficiency level. Good news from Boulder: the city council has proposed 8% annual increases for three years, from the current $14.42 an hour to $15.57 in 2025, $16.82 in 2026, and $18.17 in 2027.
In Erie, Lafayette, and Longmont, by contrast, councils are holding out for more data, and Louisville council in a straw vote opposed raising the minimum wage.
In Boulder, a public hearing with the third reading of the proposed ordinance raising the minimum wage is scheduled for Thursday evening, October 10. Boulder residents: now is the time to add your voice of support for this proposal! Current tally is 4 council members in favor, 2 opposed, and 3 undetermined. Please contact one of us for details on where the campaign stands and for suggestions for various approaches. | LWVCO Supports Prop 131 “Final-4 Voting”
and News from Marcus Ogren | We’ve been reporting about the proposed Final-4 Voting initiative for months now. Get the latest on Prop 131, learn about related ballot measures in other states and see what happened when LWV Estes Park conducted a Final-4 Voting election. In other news, Marcus Ogren has been making a name for themself in the voting methods world, and STAR Voting is up for adoption in Oakridge, OR. For all that news and to see sample Final-4 Voting and STAR Voting ballots, read the entire VM article.
Below are photos from the LWV Estes Park event. | Making Democracy Count Book Discussion |
Join the League of Women Voters of Thurston County and Olympia Unitarian Church for lively discussion on two successive Mondays:
October 21 & 28 6:00-8:00pm Pacific Time (7-9 Mountain Time)
We’ll meet In-person and on Zoom at Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation
2306 East End St. NW. Olympia, WA 98502
Contact cgosslwv.tc@gmail.com to sign up and receive your book. Books are available now - $30 each or sliding scale if needed. | | | Randomized Community Representation in Boulder: on the Path to Citizen Assemblies? | Thanks to the eagle eyes of Celeste Landry, I learned that the City of Boulder is experimenting with ways to increase participation by the people in decision-making, working with the National Civic League. The first experiment was a Community and Council Forum held on Thursday September 26, which was a revamping of the traditional council “Study Session”. The topic for this particular session was the city’s Economic Vitality Strategy, but my focus here is on the process of engaging better with residents.
In this case, they put a call out for participants to volunteer, and extended the deadline once. They ended up with 39 volunteers, and chose 10 randomly. A few members of the Voting Methods Team volunteered, and I was the only one to luck out.
The forum itself began with an optional dinner. Oddly, the community members were segregated from the staff and council during dinner. I haven’t heard their rationale for that. Then we had a presentation on the topic for all participants, which included council and city staff members, as well as representatives from about 8 partner organizations that the city works with on these sorts of economic policies. Then we broke out into small groups and discussed the issues and the proposals, and added our input. Finally we gathered back for readouts from each small group and final discussions across the whole group. I think the process clearly helped make the study session richer and avoid the group-think that so often prevents a more static group from seeing better solutions. It also helped improve networking and engagement between the participants.
The LWVBC Voting Methods Team has been talking about more comprehensive approaches to democracy reform which involve more consequential decision making by community members. These include the Citizens’ Assemblies that have been especially effective in Europe recently, to make progress in areas where elected officials are unresponsive. The city is also looking into those in the future. Citizens’ Assemblies generally give full control of the agenda and decision-making to the random panel of participants, who often come up with a proposal for a referendum to be put to the voters. The Assembly meets several times. Its members are compensated for their time and are provided with facilitation and experts who can present ideas and answer questions. They are reminiscent of the jury system used in the US, as well as the practice of “sortition” in ancient Greece to choose council members as well as juries.
More details on the city’s work to date and plans for the future can be found at the Civic Infrastructure Scan and Recommendations for Improving Public Meetings. See also relatedpages from the city. The city plans to hold two more Community and Council Forums on different topics in the coming months. Keep a watch out and put your name in the hat if you want your chance to participate! I enjoyed it, and got a free dinner. If you’re interested, please join the Voting Methods Team where we will reflect more on this sort of process, as well as other methods of better representing voters like Proportional Representation. | |