tell us what is the league of women voters well thank you for having us we'd love to talk about the league of women voters and actually the league of women voters is a misnomer right now because for i imagine the last twenty years or more we have had mint in our organization and we also have young people men and women you know men and women because anybody who is sixteen or over is welcome to join and there's no membership fee for any student of any age but we have kept the name league of women voters out of respect originally it was a league for women voters it was started by terry chapman tat on february fourteenth of nineteen twenty in chicago after the fiftieth convention of the national american women voters association imagine fifty years of conventions it took seventy two years of struggle for women to be guaranteed the right to vote and all of this took place actually six months before the night of the moment was ratified so you can see what we were working at i think the purpose was to help women learn to become informed about issues and voting itself in anticipation of the ratification of the nineteenth amendment that of princeton li was formed about ninety years  ago and there are three levels there is state of the national level l w v us the state level for an entire state of new jersey and local princeton area hopewell lawrence so that is at a marvelous question we know the answer well if you join a locally you automatically join the state and national and for example if princeton wants to have a position  in we we are long advocates in the community for affordable housing we've been very active in the press there has to be consistent with state and with national so it's it's more or less oversight of the we study all sides of an issue literally study like score and then meet together after having read all the information we can and come to consensus which means that it's not a you know majority vote sort of thing but it is a discussion that comes up with a position with which of us are comparable and that becomes our position of course  out that is only done in princeton for princeton issues like consolidation we were as a behind a consolidation after our study for state studies of elites within the state have to study the issue and then come up with a consensus for the state which of course has to be in line with the national consensus as well and one of our recent ones that was driven by a local league state was human trafficking so we  came up with the position we wanted and that was accepted at the national convention so we were we were very proud of that because it originated in new jersey so how one have you both been working for league been in the league since about one nine hundred seventy because i was very much impressed by a good friend where i live to smother was a president of the league in that town and somehow i was the i want to grow up to be a weak person so after i finished college and had a baby i joined a leak in illinois where i was for several years and when we moved to princeton i did things like voter service ice i did a research about special education in the princeton schools in the one nine hundred seventy s and there's even a book in the library still tiny but it's there because that is how we used to work you know we would study because we had time as mothers then i went to work and didn't do anything for the league except registered voters for several years but after my retirement i took over and sort of being in charge of involved helping her nationally with older service and then helping with the whole entire princeton area leave i was it was a good meeting but still what all of these  not partisan which you want us to to describe a voter guy is the league asked questions of the candidates and we recorded their answers in the old days we literally typed them out on our type array and then we sent them to a printing press and we sent it to everybody in the neighborhood well that became impossible to continue so then we went to the same routine ask the panda dates are questions recorded their answers and send them to the local papers which were kind enough to publish them now we have vote for one one which is an online voter's guide and  for one one vote for one one probably because it used to be the number that you called when you wanted information you may not remember that but once upon a time we could dial four one one and ask for somebody else's telephone number those are the good old days anyway it's vote for one one dot org and all you have to do is put it into your browser and it will come up with information nonpartisan information what's on your ballot who the candidates are and read the views on the issues so literally that's what it is you put that in you can put in your address and from there it will take you to your ballot everybody that you will have to vote for and theoretically you should be able to see every candidate on your ballots answers to our questions if they answer now that is not true through new jersey we haven't been able to cover all of new jersey because we don't have quite enough leaks but this year we have managed to cover all the counties in new jersey so anyone can see who's running for the although we are a political for a political organization registered as such as a nonprofit but it means that we don't support political parties or candidates when registering voters if they would ask us about a candidate we would say we're nonpartisan we can't discuss their so privately of course we can join political parties and we can even campaign for candidates but one we're representing the way we stay strictly nonpartisan so what is the process and general to become a member it's very simple you just complete a form and as we said this the student fees are a way of so students do not have to pay any fees adults pay about sixty dollars a year and that money goes to our state and national because they have people who are paid were volunteers but they have people who are paid to run the and even at the national level  we have an office in washington we maintain an office there some of our lobbyist can get in to talk to members of congress so they have is why we pay the fee to support those to be these just go to our website women but i don't think we ever officially excluded them not to my knowledge i don't know when the first man choice pro took a few years but we're very proud that we've been around one hundred years are there are many political organizations who do similar things to what we do but we've been around for almost one hundred years that now speaks for itself we're also one of the few organizations there has been asked to have a non voting consultant at the united nations and so we have all we have alternate as well for certain committees when they meet we have a representative there from the liko sits in course  voting members the united states has an official representative to the united nations but we are asked because of our reputation to be present when certain committees meet and one of our members who has been doing this for a while she's actually called chairing one of the united nations committees to excerpt part of your question was about men let me read you part of the league's mission statement which is at this point empowering voters defending democracy and here's what the league really wants we envision a democracy where every person has the desire the knowledge and the confidence to participate we believe in the power of women to create a more perfect democracy so we're very inclusive but we believe in the power of women because that's what we've been struggling for for you know since way got to the united states or do america so being a member of the league what does like a membership entails so how often do you meet or like say you are a member what dislike months in the life of the members look like and there really depends on the local league there are some leaks that have few members and they don't meet very often but we're always active in some capacity during the election season or service that's what we do that's our main work of the clique princeton we meet we have a leadership committee and we meet about four times a year we always have an annual dinner where we have a speaker because we have members who are very much in touch with the community and they can find speakers for us who talk about issues that are important to us such a secure voting machines we had a lawyer come and talk to us about voting machines and other than that we do have to meet to discuss positions national come to us and when we have our convention every other year for new jersey we we talk about positions and we talk about we elect a new jersey leadership team as well so it's not something that has to keep you busy ten hours a week it's not back to me ending but we can do voter registration throughout the year as well so any member who might decide in march they want to have voter registration drive there's no set time to have it anyone can do for a registration so how can you but they can they can help so we encourage students i'd love to have students helping them out with voter registration drives that that's their target because students are the future and you may know that the age range between eighteen and thirty typically does not come out and vote very often that's one of the lowest percentage group of cloning so we want change there perfect well right now we're going to bring in well one thing is that we have voter registration drives in the community and we are going to be running at princeton university and some of the local high schools we have a member who asked year register are all seven hundred high school students so we're very active about approaching the high schools and saying can we commend we're nonpartizan we can help you know we like to work with students and so we've we've been very successful in the last few years registering high school students and community college students so when we register them we tell them about what for one month and we encourage them to see who is on their ballot now don't just go to the polls and vote blindly get information before you go and vote so that's how you do it and i often write letters to the newspaper that say remember to vote and such and such a date is you know i can't be partisan but i can always remind people and i always remind them where they can find the information and we do do for us which they can look at because they were videotaped  princeton community j v we've got a wonderful collaboration since twenty ten where they they videotape of forums and they are co sponsors and people can go and actually see what the to the constitution in the one nine hundred seventy s i think was nine hundred seventy one during the vietnam war because young people so i am old enough to fight and die for my country i think i should be old enough to vote for my country and extend go out only for the president in princeton because so many there's somebody more democrats that are public and there tends to be a rip democrat elected so the primary  primaries are you know it's where you know the the community chooses among democrats animal republicans who are running well this year we had were six democrats running for two seat and essentially that was where i could be where the vote for council took place it's extremely important to vote in all elections on account of beth and another primary several years ago joe butler was funny for council and defeated sumith by just six will vote in the primary and so she got to run for council  and had six more people voted would have come out the other way or seven were people i mean it's a very very important when you mean that much to add to that or think about your school board school board affects every family who has school age children and even people who don't because of taxes and there are issues now with the concern about security in schools and safety some school boards are voting to have armed officers in schools and this is causing concern some people think it's great some people don't but you should find a candidate for school board who feels like you do if you're really upset about this then you should find a candidate and vote for a candidate who will to you or converse lee if you think that it's a good idea again find a candidate you can you can find both but it's a very divisive issue it's a very key issue that's just one example of something that's having daily impact on everybody in the community and those are the kinds of questions we try to ask with both for one so that and in fact in many many i know that many of the leagues did ask that question so when this comes out which will be somewhere after october fifth you will see they insisted that do you support or oppose we're not taking a position but we want the candidates to be able to say just exactly what they would like to see in their schools to make them safe and also we were one of the co sponsors we were approached to be a co sponsor to the march for of lives in princeton i don't know if you were there in march there were several thousand people there and that's because the the the support gun control so we were able to say yes we can be there to help you and give give support to students the organizer of their particular event just was so incredible and she also sent follow ups about  congressman well congress state congress tell them how you stand on this issue so they're changing policy and those policies are very important but if you  control platform and since he has been elected he hasn't even been in office it year and he has signed numerous bills tightening new jersey laws which are already pretty good and i just want to mention that election last year for governor of any state voting forgot it's critical action only thirty five percent of new jersey registered voters bother to go out and vote for governor and he is signing  legislation at a rapid rate that's changing life for everyone in new jersey so we want to see a lot more than thirty five percent of the voters coming out to vote for such an important office so i hard to say is that the christian president in general if we devoted registration in princeton every once registered so i think in princeton it's very good this is a very active community it's more on the national scale when you look at the national sc and i haven't seen an analysis of who did not vote for governor you know where were the pockets of not quoting what obviously there are out there and there too where we want to to reach people because you'll find some communities here eighty percent of their voters come out and vote and in other communities here ten so we're trying to figure out what's going on and how can we help with the ten percent to eighty percent marijuana this year that's taking a bone just like yours type a lot of phone calls but students do have issues and if they realize they actually can get their issue no matter which side they're on can influence whether you know you know what happens to their issue maybe they would vote i think we're just not looking at people feel powerless they are not you are the power we each of us is equally powerful  register at seventeen the other big change was that you can when you register you can check off a box and say i want to vote by mail for all future elections used to be a two step process one of the other big changes is that the motor vehicle department again our new governor signed a law that if you if you go to renu your license or get a license you are automatically registered to vote unless you opt out so that's a much more proactive used to be you could opt in this is your end you have to opt out and that will take effect november first because it took a while for them to get everything in place so there could happen so we are hoping that it will increase the number of people who are registered because a lot of eligible people are not registered and then should only hope other states have bonus and they found that it does help not only with registering people but getting people to vote and i would like to have a head that there will be a forum for the candidates for the princeton board of education up to over four at seven o'clock at the  universalist congregation on cherry cherry hill road right but it would be a large list of people came out and heard what the candidates have to say now also a high school senior couple years ago ran for the board of education in west windsor play world he didn't win but he ran against a very very well thought of candidate but i was so impressed that he was only eighteen and he said if i'm elected i will go to school vocally i will go to college locally he really wanted to serve on the board of education so if you're eighteen you can hold office