As League members, we should be very proud of our heritage in promoting voting rights. The League of Women Voters of the United States was established in our front yard. It was founded in Chicago just six months before August 18, 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified and granted American women the right to vote. The League was formed by members of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, who struggled for decades to secure this Constitutional right. They picketed. They marched. They were assaulted. They were jailed. And they went on hunger strikes. In the end, they triumphed.
Other struggles to broaden voting rights followed. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) was enacted with bipartisan support to overcome barriers that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote. The League did not take this achievement for granted. It advocated for the reauthorization of the VRA and the extension of its protections to other minorities, and it joined in litigation that sought to limit the reach of this law.
Recent efforts to limit voting rights indicate that the struggle is not over. The League has played a key role in opposing these efforts. Last year, it successfully sued to invalidate an Executive Order that would have required documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. Since then, it has filed a lawsuit to overturn a new rule that bars the League and other nonpartisan organizations from providing voter registration and promoting civic engagement to new U.S. citizens at naturalization ceremonies. And it has joined other organizations in challenging the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote, even though all States already require voters to affirm or verify their citizenship status before they can vote.
This history reminds us that we cannot take our right to vote for granted. We must honor the struggle of those who fought to secure and retain this right by voting in local, state and federal elections.
And with that history in mind, we remind you that the March 17 Illinois primaries are almost upon us. Please exercise your hard-won right to vote.
Learn more
The Voting and Elections section of the LWVE website has links to general information on registering to vote, how to get involved as an election judge or pollwatcher, and more.
Our special page on the March 17 Primary lists the many offices for which we’ll be voting as well as key dates for voter registration and early voting.
VOTE411.org, the League of Women Voters national platform, provides a wealth of information. Especially relevant this time is information on the 9th Congressional US Representative candidates. The same set of questions was sent to all candidates, and the information was reviewed only for spelling/grammar corrections before posting on this site. (The LWVE coordinated this process.) To access the responses, just go to VOTE411.org and enter your home address and the website will take you to where you need to go.
U.S. Senate Primary Candidate Forums: LWVIL co-sponsored these forums with ABC7 Chicago and Univision Chicago.
• Democratic forum, January 29 [recording]
• Democrat and Republican primary forum, February 11 [recording]
Illinois State Senate 9 Democratic Primary Candidate Forum, February 12: Co-sponsored by The Leagues of Women Voters of Glenview-Glencoe, Evanston, Wilmette, and Winnetka-Northfield-Kenilworth.
• Democratic forum [recording]
Support the Evanston League’s efforts to develop and distribute critical information for voting decisions.
– Georgia & Lisa