Dear League member,

Summer in the League is the time when planning for the coming year happens. The new boards meet in retreat to get to know one another and plan how they will manage the work ahead—who is doing what is the question at hand.  

The state Board had a wonderful opportunity to meet in July at our c4 Treasurer Dee Ann Kline's lovely home in Shelton. Spokane League member and state League Nominating Committee Chair Jean Alliman kindly facilitated a lovely day where Board members shared their ideas about plans for their portfolio. All Washington state League members have a stake in the state Board; members belong to the League at the local, state and national level. And at each level, it's helpful to know who's doing what. Here is a matrix that explains just that.

To learn a bit more about our board members and to get their contact information, check out the LWVWA Board of Directors page.

Warmly,

Mary Coltrane, LWVWA President

While we are currently in the throes of election activities for this year’s local elections, it’s not too early to start thinking about 2024—which will be a major election year for races at the national, state, and local level. It will be vitally important to provide voters with information about these elections and to reach as many voters as we can.  

TVW is Washington’s state public affairs network and airs on cable channels as well as online. Mike Bay, VP of Programming for TVW, is interested in covering  state legislative races in 2024. Bay has offered to meet with the local Leagues interested in airing candidate forums or debates next year, to discuss what TVW can offer in terms of airing and producing such events.   

We will schedule a statewide Zoom meeting with Mike Bay sometime in the fall. If you are interested in attending, please contact Shelley Kneip.

Thank you to each one of you for being a member of the League of Women Voters and for all that you do to promote democracy in our communities!

The LWVWA Nominating Committee has already begun work to find the League members who will join the LWVWA Board. LWVWA members will be nominated for the First Vice President, C4 Treasurer and four Director positions. The election will take place at our 2024 Council. Please consider volunteering yourself or suggesting another person from your Local League to apply for these positions. We need your skills and input in our state’s programs!

The application form and the form to suggest another person will soon be available in the Nominating Committee webpage in the "For Members" portion of our website.

The members of the current Nominating Committee are:

Jean Alliman, Chair, LWV of Spokane Area 

Linda Benson, LWV of Clallam County

Miriam Kerzner, LWV of Benton-Franklin Counties

Shelley Kneip, LWV of Thurston County

Julie Sarkissian, LWV of Seattle-King County

Free free to reach out to the members of the Nominating Committee (their emails are linked above), if you have questions about this process. Suggestions are welcome too!

During the pandemic, some members of the League of Women of the San Juans (LWVSJ) started kicking around the idea of reviving an Observer Corps. They had one in the early days, but it was long moribund.

When some LWVSJ members attended the caucus for the soon-to-be-issued Local News study, at the 2022 LWVWA Council in Everett, they were convinced it was time to act. While San Juan County is lucky to still have local print weeklies and a couple of on-line newspapers, it was clear that their skeleton staffs were struggling to provide coverage of local government. When asked, the Editor of The Journal of the San Juan Islands said she would gladly publish LWVSJ Observer Corps notes.

In summer 2022, board member Necia Quast began a pilot covering the County Council, Friday Harbor Town Council, The Friday Port Commission, the San Juan Island (SJI) School Board, and the SJI Public Hospital District. As the notes began to appear in The Journal, San Juan County's on-line outlets asked for the Observer Corps notes as well. At a November membership retreat, LWVSJ members approved officially establishing an Observer Corps. Five more members agreed to cover specific meetings or cover absences, and as of January 1, 2023, the Corps has gone from pilot to official—and they added the County Board of Health and the SJI Fire District to the meetings covered.

The notes themselves are concise, limited to a single page. They leave out routine actions, but cover all decisions made and provide brief descriptions of issues discussed, key points and any public comments. In addition to being published, there are links to the notes on the LWVSJ website.

The Observer Corps project has been successful on several fronts.

• The news outlets where notes are published have received lots of positive feedback, including letters to editor thanking the publications and the LWVSJ for the notes.  A recent letter-writer said the Observer Core notes kept them "in-the- know about town and county news" and are very appreciated! Writers also comment that they hope the League can continue this valuable project.  

• LWVSJ has received requests to cover additional bodies like the Planning Commission and the SJI Library Board of Trustees. The Salish Current, one of the on-line publications covering the San Juan Islands, did a news story on the Observer Corps. It has clearly raised the profile and awareness of the League in the county.
  
  Looking forward, LWVSJ hopes to bring more members on as observers to cover additional meetings as requested and to expand membership on other islands to cover school boards, ports and fire districts on the other main islands.

After two years of development, the Public Hospital Civic Education project was inaugurated at the state Convention in May. At a workshop, the project background and work products were described; and at the evening caucus the webinar was shown. This project is now ready for prime time! 

Would you like a local League unit meeting or general membership meeting program? Would you like to host a public forum? The Public Hospital District education tools are ready to be used. There is a webinar explaining Public Hospital Districts, what they can do and how they work; and materials that provide an understanding of how to work more effectively with a PHD Commission in your area and how to form a PHD if you don’t have one are ready to be used. These resources can be used alone or in combination with a speaker from the project team who can make a presentation or answer questions. 

The materials are on the PHD web page and the PHD Team stands ready to support local Leagues by attending your meetings to answer questions or make presentations. 

Contact Nancy Field if you would like to arrange a program with the participation of one of the PHD team members. 

Read about the role of Public Hospital Districts in our health care system and details about the modules available from this project here.

The League of Women Voters of the United States adopted a Member Rights and Responsibilities Policy last May. This policy lays out the rights and responsibilities associated with being a member of the League of Women Voters—at all levels of our federated structure. The purpose of the policy is to ensure all active members are committed to maintaining the mission and integrity of LWV.  

In reading this new policy, three ideas struck me as significant takeaways: 

1. Member responsibility for promoting respectful discourse. We live in tricky times where civil discourse is not necessarily a given. To that end, the policy reminds us that this is the rightful expectation of every member when engaging in League activities. 
   
   
2. Speaking with one voice. Active members are active because they want to make a difference. This is tremendously important. At the same time, making a difference is possible because embedded in League culture is the idea that though we are working on many different projects in different arenas, we work together. The member policy calls this out by noting that statements on behalf of the LWV must be authorized by the local, state or national League. 
   
   
3. Complaint process. For the first time, National League has provided state and local Leagues with guidance to develop a complaint process. The state Board is developing such a process now so that every member has the ability to make a complaint about a concern in a productive manner. 
   
   

The member policy notes that the League provides members with opportunities to make a difference. As volunteers, we bring time, passion and energy to our work. Understanding our rights and responsibilities as active members will ensure each volunteer gets the most out of their volunteer experience.  

Perhaps most importantly, the member policy supports both the League's Diversity, Inclusion and Equity policy and our nonpartisan policy—at all levels of the League. The clarity this policy brings to member rights and responsibilities, along with our DEI and nonpartisan policies, can shape the League in a constructive manner for years to come. Your takeaways may be different than mine. I urge you to take a close look and chat with other folks you're working with. It's a conversation worth having.

Mary Coltrane
LWVWA President

Following the conclusion of their two-year study focused on the Chehalis Tribe, the Nisqually Indian Tribe, and the Squaxin Island Tribe, the LWV of Thurston County adopted or revised multiple positions.

Seven new or revised positions were adopted during Thurston County's Annual Meeting in May 2023. A copy of the study and additional information about the study process and outcomes can be found here.

You may submit candidate questions for the General Election. The goal is to have candidates answer questions only one time—we don't want the Primary candidates who answered questions to have to answer more questions. Please only submit questions for races that didn't have any questions available for candidates in the Primary.   

The deadline to submit questions for General Election candidates is September 10th.

For clarification on crafting questions for candidates or to submit candidate questions, email: vote411questions@lwvwa.org. 

Additional items:  

1. Please provide no more than 5 questions for the candidates to answer.  
2. If you submit more than 5 questions per race, please identify which questions are most important to your county. Questions will be edited down to 5 for each race.
3. If questions were submitted for a candidate during the Primary Election, please don't submit questions again for those candidates for the General Election. We only want candidates to answer questions one time during the election season. 

Ideas and sample questions from LWVUS are available here. 

The next step is encouraging candidates to answer questions on Vote 411. Resources for encouraging candidates to respond are available: 

1. Check out this video from LWVUS.
2. Vote411 also has this guide available.

The LWVWA recently updated the "Program of Work and Studies” information in the “For Members” section of our website. The updates include additional resources and information about the current LWVWA programs for 2023-2025 biennium.

Additionally, there is now a spot for local Leagues to share their studies and reports under “LWVWA Studies/Reports.” Local Leagues that would like to include a link to a completed program on this page should contact Shelley Kneip.

Vote411 is live! 

•  Direct folks with questions about the primary races in their jurisdictions to Vote411.   

• Continue to submit questions to Vote 411 for the General Election: vote411questions@lwvwa.org. 

• See if your candidates have responded to the Vote411 questions. If gentle encouragement is needed, resources are available here and here.   

Updates from Lucy Barefoot, Voter Education and Outreach Specialist, Elections Division, Secretary of State.

• Voter Registration changes coming in 2024: The ability to use the last 4 digits of social security number (SSN) for online voter registration will not go into effect until 2024. Recent legislation enabled the change but did include guidance on how signatures will be collected. Also coming in 2024, automatic voter registration will be implemented for those who are getting an enhanced driver’s license.    
  
  

• Variety of SSN: Having a social security number or card does not necessarily mean the holder is a citizen. Someone may be determined ineligible to vote based on the type of SSN they have. Those social security cards have language such as: “valid for work only with DSH authorization,” “Valid for work only with INS authorization” or “Not valid for employment." Much of the burden of determining citizenship still falls on the registrant. 
  
  

• SOS sent out an envelope of voter registration materials to all Leagues in May. Many of the materials can be ordered on their website.