The League of Women Voters of Metro St. Louis serves voters on a non-partisan basis in four primary ways:
1. Register voters at venues and for organizations requesting that service.
2. Conduct non-partisan candidate forums or forums to explore public issues, when invited by a community organization.
3. Prepare a print Voters Guide before each major election. We publish a candidate's own words. For ballot propositions, we prepare a paragraph about what proponents say and what opponents say. The guides are distributed in the Sunday issue of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about two weeks before the election and also hand delivered to organizations and businesses that request them. Voters may access the Voters Guide information relevant to their exact address online through the League's vote411.org website.
4. Research and prepare information relevant to all Missouri voters, such as voter ID requirements, and for specialized populations. All current handouts are available on this website. In addition, our Speakers Bureau responds to requests for talks about election-related topics.
The League is committed to helping disabled voters in the Metro St. Louis region cast a ballot. See the Fact Sheet on Disabled Voting.
Need a speaker for your next event? Request a speaker.
VOTER REGISTRATION
Mary Toy organizes registrations at four community colleges, and the St. Charles Unit goes to Lindenwood University as well. Nancy Price heads tabling opportunities for people who have completed their parole status and are eligible to vote.
We formed an ad hoc committee which created a Youth Civic Engagement team which has worked with high school registrars to deliver lessons and activities on the importance of voting.
Sabrina Tyuse continues to seek out community fairs and festivals for registration drives and we work with organizations that complete a request on our website.
Thanks to summer 2023 intern Paige Allen, all new volunteers begin by watching our training video and then they are directed to our various teams. Co Chairs Julie Gaebe, Jill Brown, and Jennifer Shylanski organize volunteer training and placement and oversee the weekly or bi-weekly voter registration at Naturalization Ceremonies at the Eagleton Courthouse.
In all, a very impressive number of 3,698 residents are registered to vote because of our 175+ trained registrar volunteers.
|
|
# Activities |
# VR Cards |
# Online VR |
# Reminders |
# To Go Packets |
# Volunteers |
# Volunteer Hours |
|
Com Colleges |
7 |
22 |
66 |
58 |
0 |
14 |
32 |
|
Events |
40 |
301 |
17 |
38 |
181 |
79 |
204 |
|
Naturalizations |
66 |
2289 |
5 |
806 |
511 |
497 |
1026 |
|
HS: City |
10 |
161 |
29 |
113 |
77 |
35 |
70 |
|
HS: County |
31 |
195 |
515 |
161 |
0 |
111 |
262 |
|
HS: NOCO |
5 |
80 |
18 |
53 |
0 |
16 |
32 |
|
Total |
159 |
3048 |
650 |
1229 |
769 |
752 |
1625 |
-Julie Gaebe
CANDIDATE FORUMS
The League’s 2023-24 fiscal year was a bit unusual in that there was only one election held and that was on April 2, 2024, when voters had the opportunity to determine the public officials in their communities and school districts. And League candidate forum volunteers were there!
During the months of February and March there were 11 forums for races that included one contest for mayor, four for city council members and six for board of education members. One forum was held virtually, several were live-streamed, and most were recorded so constituents in the various municipalities could watch the forums virtually if they couldn’t attend in person. A practice that was initiated out of necessity during Covid continued this year and provided the public with the opportunity to submit questions virtually in advance of the forums as well as at the in person events. This resulted in dozens of questions on many different topics for the candidates to answer and the voters to learn about.
In addition to the candidate forums, the League was asked to monitor elections in three school districts where teachers were able to vote on their choice of a collective bargaining agent. Both the candidate forums and these activities provided a way for League volunteers to not only offer a valuable service but also to learn more about what’s important to citizens in the broader St. Louis metropolitan area.
Many thanks to the more than 40 League volunteers who staffed these important activities, serving as moderators, timers, card collectors and monitors.
–Candidate Forum Team – Barbara Harris and Yvette Kell
Looking to hold a candidate/issue forum in your community? Request an LWV moderator.
VOTERS GUIDE
Production process. The first 2024 Voters Guide was produced for the April municipal election. The Voters Guide included responses from 323 candidates (out of 680) vying for 427 races. Ultimately, 21 volunteers participated in the production tasks of creating the municipal guide totaling 870 hours of service. From first acquiring the candidate data to finally distributing the finished guides, the process took approximately 10 weeks.
The process of producing the municipal guide (which has the largest number of candidates of any election) began at the end of 2023. Jill Brown, Jennifer Shylanski and Diane Kasten volunteered to head up the project. They determined that improvements were needed in the production process, specifically, administrative access, research methods and proofreading. They divided the work into three teams. Jill and Jennifer headed teams composed of researchers (who find information missing from candidate responses) and campaign callers (who contact non-responders to urge them to participate). Diane headed the team of proofreaders, candidate tracking and questions, and liaising with the Post-Dispatch.
Training of volunteers was a major area of attention for each team, especially in the areas of researching and proofreading. Each of the co-leaders created materials and presentations for their respective teams. In January, several training sessions were held and over 30 volunteers attended at least one session.
Production of the 2024 Voters Guide was very successful due to several factors: identification of problem areas and effective solutions, excellent leadership, engaged and well-trained volunteers, and the ongoing cooperation and support of the Post-Dispatch. We plan to continue to “fine tune” this process, including holding training sessions on an annual basis to maintain a high level of expertise. The 2024 municipal election was also the first time we were able to mail the invitation letters by bulk, saving the League over $400.
Ballot Measures. We also want to recognize the invaluable assistance of Kathleen Farrell and her team. Those 8 volunteers carried out the research and summarized the 78 ballot measures for a total of 63 volunteer hours.
Distribution. A total of 10,000 guides were printed in a timely manner and distributed on March 14 and 15 to 150 locations in St. Louis city and the counties of St. Louis, St. Charles, Jefferson and Franklin. This year the newly appointed head of the distribution team, Julia Brown, along with another 32 volunteers, spent 96 hours on the deliveries.
–Diane Kasten
Would you like to have copies of our non-partisan Voters Guide delivered to you? Request here
GET-OUT-THE-VOTE (GOTV)
The GOTV Committee targeted its April 2024 election efforts in North St. Louis County (particularly the Normandy School District) including:
- Creating a public Voting Toolkit database pulling together all voting basics information in one location, plus including:
- Over 200 freely downloadable graphics for social media, voter hand-outs, posters, bookmarks, bus shelter ads and handbills.
- A social media campaign calendar for timely posting of graphics on Facebook, Instagram and X.
- Subject matter folders for specific issues such as the “Every Voter” folder that includes information on issues such as required photo id, absentee ballots, and deadlines, and a “Why Vote?” folder that shares messages stressing how every voter is needed in a democracy. Other folders specifically target the needs of disabled/senior voters, young voters, issue-voters, formerly-incarcerated voters, and Spanish-speaking voters.
The GOTV toolkit is available for anyone to use – organizations and individuals – to help them share nonpartisan voting/election information and encouragement in their circles. The GOTV committee is working to increase visibility and usage of the GOTV toolkit by more organizations/businesses, and the toolkit will be updated for each 2024 election. View the toolkit at t.ly/GOTVtoolkit
- Participating in the Annual Mid County Martin Luther King Jr Celebration organized by Pine Lawn, Wellston, the Normandy Schools Collaborative, and Young Voices with Action, including marching in the parade (it was fun, even with a temperature of -8F), registering voters and providing other voter information.
- Anchoring an Urban League Voter Empowerment Tour for six local communities in North St. Louis County, including Normandy, Wellston, Moline Acres, Florissant, Northwoods and University City.
- Providing voting information both to North County voters, as well as community resource organizations concerned with education, health, child care, substance abuse, crime victims, and employment training.
- Enabling volunteers to handwrite, stamp and mail 2,500 postcards to infrequent voters in the Normandy School District encouraging them to vote for their community in the April election. (Postage partially subsidized by a grant plus volunteer donations of $5 per packet of 125 postcards.)
- Sending 5,400 voting text reminders to 1,800 voters beginning 6 weeks before the election. (The GOTV committee sends three text reminders for an election – 6 weeks before to “check voter registration”, 2 weeks before to “make a voting plan, VOTE411, and no-excuse absentee is available”, and 3 days before to “vote on Tuesday.”)
- Design and posting of a Vote ad on two bus shelters in North County to reach even more infrequent voters. (Bus shelter ads pictured at right were funded by a restricted donation.)
A HUGE thank-you to all the volunteers who made so much possible for the April 2024 municipal elections.
And now –
Let's GET OUT THE VOTE to make democracy work in 2024!
–Angie Dunlap and Mary Toy (GOTV co-chairs)
FREE NOTARY: Voters can come to the League office to have absentee ballots notarized
at no cost. Usually a notary will be in the League office from 9:30 am to 3:30 Monday through Friday, but please call before you come to check availability.
Submit Your Request:
