The most important direct voter services we deliver are voter registration, candidate forums, and the voters guide before each major election.

VOTER REGISTRATION

From April 2023 to April 2024 we organized our voter registration efforts into teams that met to strategize, share ideas, and train new volunteers. We now have four high school voter registration teams: County (led by Peggy Robb), North County (Barbara Mitchell), City (Steve Reed), and St. Charles (Mary Baker). In all, we conduct voter registration drives for students 17 ½ and above at 77 area high schools.

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.

Need volunteers to register voters? Request that LWV volunteers come to your event.

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 in the past year, serving as moderators, timers, card collectors and monitors.

Would you like to hold a candidate or ballot 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.  Much the same activity occurred prior to the August election.

Would you like to have copies of our non-partisan Voters Guide delivered to you?  Request Voters Guides here