Local League Of Women Voters To Hit The Streets At Women’s March, Celebrate 100 Years, Work Toward Change

Members of the Arlington Heights chapter of the League of Women Voters (LWVAH) after a day of training at the Arlington Heights Library. From left to right: Tracy McGonagle, Barbara Sabaj, Lisa Slankard, Nancy Shocket, Heidi Graham and Eryn Nelken. (Nic F. Anderson/Journal Photo)

Approximately 100 years ago in the Congress Plaza Hotel’s “Gold Room” in Chicago, a group of women met and formed the League of Women Voters. What the women in the Gold Room didn’t know then was that their organization and its effect would spread throughout Chicago, into the suburbs, out to the country’s coasts and beyond.

On Saturday, Jan. 18, the League of Women Voters chapter of Arlington Heights (LWVAH) will take part in the annual Women’s March in Chicago’s downtown “Block Five” on Addams between State and Dearborn, to provide voter information.

LWVAH is a nonpartisan and completely volunteer-based group of people from different areas aiming to educate and inform others on an array of topics such as voter rights, the Census, fair maps, housing, reproductive rights, gun violence, to name a few.

LWVAH President Heidi Graham said that she joined because the league is nonpartisan and not connected to any political party. It was an opportunity to work toward getting everyone to vote and to be informed. “The mission of the League of Women Voters is not just to engage voters but to inform voters, to make sure that they have as impartial and unbiased information as possible,” Graham said.

Due to their official nonpartisan status, the organization doesn’t support or oppose any candidates and instead focuses on the issues at large, either locally or nationally.

“The thing that drew me to the league was that I kept feeling like when I would read the newspaper or listen to the news and try to follow issues, that I was frequently being told how to think. I didn’t feel that about league,” Graham said. “League gave me the information in such a balanced and impartial way that I could make up my own mind. I liked that.”

LWVAH covers a large area of the Northwest suburbs. “If High School District 214 touches it, that’s our league,” Graham said, explaining that while Arlington Heights is in LWVAH’s name, the chapter extends into Mount Prospect, Buffalo Grove, Elk Grove Village, Prospect Heights, Wheeling and sometimes Rolling Meadows.

LWVAH Emerging Leader Eryn Nelken said, “Everything in everyone’s life here is influenced, or governed, by the government; the water we drink, the air we breathe, the scholarships me and my friends get at college… it’s really important that people are informed so that they have a say as how these things are run.”

An emerging leader is a special group of people who are generally under the age of 26-years-old and are charged little to nothing in membership fees as a way to try to overcome any barriers in getting involved with the organization. Currently, LWVAH has approximately 15 emerging leaders, with the youngest 13-years-old.

“If we don’t have more diversity at the table, how are we going to reach a wider audience?” Graham said.

LWVAH member Connie Weissman said that she was “hooked” after attending a candidate forum that LWVAH hosted. She explained that when LWVAH hosts candidate forums, the attendees are able to ask candidates questions that matter to them and in turn, every candidate is given the same amount of time to answer those questions.

“That had meaning to me, that made it civilized to me and gave me the information that I needed so that I could go to the poll and feel confident in the selections I was making on my ballot,” Weissman said.

Another LWVAH member, Barbara Sabaj, said that the organization does a lot to provide information and get voters out. One of the many events LWVAH hosts are voter registration drives at District 214 high schools. On National Voter Registration Day (Sept. 24), the organization goes into all of the high schools. This past Wednesday (Jan. 15), LWVAH held a voter registration at Hersey High School with another one coming up at the Arlington Heights Library on Feb. 15.

Along with helping students register to vote and providing information on how to do it, LWVAH found inspiration from the Naperville league and personal experience to make voting more formal.

LWVAH provides each student in District 214 and St. Viator High School a “birthday envelope,” which is delivered to them on their voting birthday, or their 18th birthday. Each envelope contains a letter inviting them to register to vote and get informed; a magnet about absentee voting; a pen-stylus that says “the vote is mightier than the pen” and candy.

The funding for LWVAH’s birthday envelopes and events they hold mainly come from fundraising. There are only 13 states, Illinois being one, that have paid members within the League of Women Voters organization; however, the Arlington Heights chapter is all-volunteer. Graham said that LWVAH only keeps a small amount of the membership dues that they collect; most of it goes to the state and national levels for the work that the national organization is doing.

“It’s going to the work at hand, it’s not going to salaries or administrative costs,” Graham said.

One of the ways the Arlington Heights chapter is going to raise money this year is through its 100th Anniversary Gala on Feb. 14 in the Metropolis Ballroom in Arlington Heights.

Graham said that she likes to make sure that people know that despite the league’s name, implying it’s for women only isn’t the case. “We’re open to all genders,” she said, “all people have a place at the table.”

“While voting is a privilege, it’s definitely an obligation,” Nelken said.

LWVAH will be ready to provide anyone who stops by Block Five during the Women’s March this Saturday with information on how to get involved, informed and vote.