League of Women Voters Asheville - Buncombe County, NC

Roco the Voter Registration Wonder Dog & LWVAB volunteers

The Junior League of Asheville’s annual Volunteer Expo was Saturday, March 23rd, at the Crowne Plaza Resort. LWVAB participates in this event each year. If you missed meeting us and Roco, give us a call. We’d love to hear from you.

LWVUS United Nations

The UN’s largest annual gathering on gender equality/women’s *and girls’* empowerment kicked off on Monday, March 11, and members of the League of Women Voters across the US are there, serving as #CSW68 delegates!

 

The next Books to Action Book Club will be focused on elections and voting. The book is Thank you for voting: the maddening, enlightening, inspiring truth about voting in America by Erin Geiger Smith. Please call 828-250-4700 if you would like help putting a hold on a library copy of this book. The library also plans to send some supplemental suggested resources (news articles, podcasts, etc.) to registrants to help round out the reading.

The group will come together to discuss the book and these issues at Buncombe County Elections Services. Participants will meet with elections staff and elections officials for a Q&A. They may also get to incorporate some hands-on activities, such as a ballot checking exercise and/or a demo of the new touch screen voting machines. Registration is required; register here.

 

Herstory – Determined Suffragettes

On March 3,1913, five thousand women gathered for a march in Washington, DC to call for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote. Surrounded by a large number of spectators, the women were jeered, jostled and violently attacked. The police did little to help. One hundred women were hospitalized that day.

Fifty years later, my grandmother, Ruth Bassett Lehman, would tell me about her experience in the march, perhaps declaring her determination: she, too, had been whacked with a billy club.

By Peggy Baker, Member LWVAB

About the League

The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan, volunteer-based, political organization consisting of women and men passionate about our democracy. Born out of the national women’s suffrage movement in 1920, the League continues to work to serve the needs of the voting public and protect the rights of all voters.

Our efforts are two-fold:
Voters Service, Citizen Education – presenting unbiased, nonpartisan information about elections, the voting process and current issues.

Action, Advocacy – following education on the issue(s), action is taken towards enacting policies in the public interest and striking down policies harmful to society.

A just society is derived from a democracy consisting of an engaged and educated public that has faith in the political process.

The League of Women Voters is a membership organization encouraging action and advocacy as a nonprofit 501(c)(4) corporation. To conduct our voter service and citizen education activities, funds are derived from the Florence Ryan Education Fund, which is a 501(c)(3) corporation, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to building citizen participation in democratic process, studying key community issues at all government levels in an unbiased manner, and enabling people to seek positive solutions to public policy issues through education and conflict management.

The League of Women Voters of Asheville-Buncombe County currently offers meetings and events for members as well as educational programs for the public. Quarterly member events include two meetings each year, a Holiday Social in winter and an Annual Luncheon & Meeting in May or June. League action teams and committees also hold regular meetings for the members involved in those groups.

Join us! Check us out on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And check out our YouTube Channel for past meetings and voting issues we’re involved with. Our Calendar and News pages have upcoming events and news. You can also read our Program Priorities and our Bylaws.

Connect with your State League: North Carolina League of Women Voters
Connect with the National League: National League of Women Voters

Our chapter is centered around Buncombe County and includes several adjoining counties. This is the homeland of the Cherokee and other nations. We recognize the sovereignty and traditional territories of these local tribal nations, the treaties used to remove them, and the histories of dispossession. We honor and respect the many diverse indigenous people who came before us, who are still here, and who are connected to the land on which we reside.