2023 Newsletters
20th December Connie and I wish all of you an enjoyable holiday season. We hope you are able to use this time to take care of yourself with deep rest and relaxation.
6th December See the Events section for the Arlington County General Assembly Delegation Pre-Legislative Session for more information on Ranked Choice Voting. A gentle reminder to consider thoughtfully the volunteer opportunity listings.
15th November The results are in! Voting rights and ballot access wins in Virginia. We can share a collective sigh of relief knowing that critical ballot access legislation we advocated for a few years ago will stay safely in place…for now.
1st November In another week or so, we will have a sense of what our continued fight for voting rights and access to the ballot will look like as our State elections come to an end. Voting rights and ballot access has veered ever closer to a partisan issue in these recent years; but we can find our strength and solidarity in reminding ourselves that our ability to use our voice is fundamentally located in our vote.
18th October If September is voter registration season, then November will be the fruits of our harvest. As new presidents both Connie and I got a front row view into the voter registration apparatus of the League of Women Voters of Arlington and Alexandria City. It’s pretty impressive!
4th October Changes on Statement of Voter Envelopes for Early Voting. Volunteers Needed: The more people we have on specific issues, the better equipped we are to respond to issues in our community.
20th September September is voter registration season! There are a lot of opportunities to register voters. Please sign up for as many opportunities as you can.
6th September We have some new things going on in our League. New members are stepping up and getting involved! Many League members attended the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington recently.
16th August Connie and I have been very pleased with the willingness of our League members to come forward to volunteer for positions and roles where we need help. We will continue to publish a ‘Volunteers Needed’ section right at the top of this newsletter and we hope that our members will continue to step up.
2nd August November elections will be here before you know it. We are working with our Candidate Forum Committee and League members to organize events for this fall. We will keep you posted as soon as we have the details.
19th July As many of you know, on Saturday, 15 July, the Arlington County Board rejected the use of RCV for the upcoming General Election on November 7. This is a huge disappointment. The sense of frustration is palpable and discouraging. Without bypassing or dismissing the collective disappointment we feel, we can still take the long view and remember that RCV efforts in Maine started in 2001. We will continue to move forward on this.
5th July We have arrived! That ‘we’ will be a common feature going forward as Connie Potter and I (Pam Berg) settle in to our new roles as copresidents of the League of Women Voters of Arlington and Alexandria City (ARLALX). With a depth of gratitude, we warmly wish outgoing president Joan Porte the best as she assumes her new role as President, League of Women Voters of Virginia.
21st June Well, here it is, my last message as President of Arlington and Alexandria City. I can’t believe it has been five years, but it has been a wonderful five years. No matter what craziness – human made, or germ made – was visited upon us we rose to the challenge.
7th June As we head into the “dog days” of summer. We also head into voter registration time. Our high school team headed by Voter Services Chair, Donald Gurney and past President, Kathy Matusiak have been going gangbusters and have registered more than 200 young people. Now we turn to summer events, including the Columbia Pike Blues Festival that is June 17.
17th May If you haven’t already done so, please RSVP to our annual meeting on May 21. It is always good to see each other, and we will hear from Liz White about Ranked Choice Voting. Bring a friend who wants to know more about this or who is interested in the League.
3rd May Thanks to the incredible generosity of one of our members, who insists on anonymity, we are the recipients of a $15,000 donation! Our only directive is that we use this money in a new way to further voting education/registration.
19th April It is time to come together for our Annual Meeting! May 21, 2023, 2:30- 4:00 PM at the Walter Reed Community Center.
5th April What we can do is say thank you to our election workers for all of their hard work and dedication to free elections by sending them thank you cards.
15th March Come to Convention – as a delegate! The LWV VA convention will be on June 3 -4 in Williamsburg. It starts with a reception and welcome on the night of June 2 but the "action" starts Saturday June 3 and runs until noon on June 4. Arlington has 12 delegates, and we want to be there in force!
1st March This is going to be a busy year for us in terms of voter services. We will have a June 20 primary that will be done via Ranked Choice Voting for Arlington County Board and “regular voting” for other offices. Also, we will be voting this year on the newly redrawn districts. So, we will have to get our voter education hats on for sure.
15th February Yesterday was our birthday! February 14, 2023 was the 103rd birthday of the League of Women Voters. This timeline was made by folks at the LWV US when we turned 100 but it is still a good reminder of how we started and where we come from. https://www.lwv.org/about-us/history
1st February Do you want to help broadcast our message? We need more people to sign up for the Broadcast Media Committee and work with the Arlington Independent Media to get our show off the ground.
18th January This year we will have a short (but impactful) General Assembly Session and a very long election season. The General Assembly will be taking up bills to limit a woman’s right to choose and changes to restrict voting rights and access. There is hope that we can make progress on campaign finance, and we will always work hard to allow returning citizens to restore their voting rights as soon as they are released.
4th January Happy New Year! It is going to be a busy one as we will have to provide voting information including all of the new districts we will have in Arlington and Alexandria City in the November elections. The entire House and Senate of Virginia will be up for election – on new maps. In addition, the June primaries will be run on Ranked Choice Voting for the first time. So, we are calling on everyone dedicated to voting to be on call!
