LWVUS President Deborah Turner to Speak in Program Co-hosted by Ripon Area League 

On September 30, LWV of the Ripon Area will co-host an online panel discussion, "The Right to Vote: Past, Present and Future," in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment and the founding of the League of Women Voters by Carrie Chapman Catt, who was born in Ripon in 1859. The national League's new President, Deborah Turner, is one of three panelists brought together by the Ripon League and their co-host, the Center for Politics and the People at Ripon College, to discuss the historical and contemporary importance of the struggle to expand and protect suffrage in the United States. Genevieve McBride, Professor of History Emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who has written and lectured extensively on Wisconsin women’s suffrage, will address Catt’s role in achieving women’s enfranchisement and how that struggle is relevant for protecting the right to vote today.

Barry Burden, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Elections Research Center, and the Lyons Family Chair in Electoral Politics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will address issues of voting methods (especially mail-in ballots), voter ID laws, and gerrymandering.

Ripon Area League member Ellen Sorensen will moderate the event.

If you are interested in attending this event, please contact Brian Smith, co-director of the Center for Politics and the People at Ripon College, at smithb [at] ripon.edu. Attendees will be sent an email to register for the event about a week beforehand, followed by the link to join the event a few days before. More information is available on our website.