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Focus on the forum
League of Women Voters does its part to educate, inform and advocate before the election
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by JESSE YEATMAN
Members and board members with the League of Women Voters of St. Mary's County, including, from left clockwise, Mary Novotny, membership chair; Jane Aldridge, treasurer; Karen Everett, voter services; Cindy Miller, member; Janeen Grohsmeyer, online services director for the League of Women Voters of Maryland; Ginni Stein, in charge of newsletter and publicity; Florence Lanham, liaison to elected officials; Connie Stoker, prospective member; Janice Hummel, previous president; and Patricia "Pat" Dunlap, president, meet at the Leonardtown library July 19 to plan for the group's candidate forum in August.
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It's a straightforward project taken on by the League of Women Voters of St. Mary's County every year – invite area voters and political candidates to a public meeting so the candidates can answer questions and the voters can listen and make better-informed decisions.
The LWV-SMC candidate forum for the primary election will be held Aug. 23 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Lexington Park library. An online voter's guide will go live Aug. 17 at the league's website. A general election forum is currently scheduled for Oct. 25.
But there are details to work out and guidelines to follow, and 10 members of the league met last week at the Leonardtown library to hammer out some of the details.
"It's against league policy to only have one candidate on one segment," said Janeen Grohsmeyer, online services director for the League of Women Voters of Maryland. That means a video of the forum can't be cut into pieces and posted on You Tube. It could come across as looking partisan, even if that wasn't the intent.
So the group decided to instead post the forum video on the library website, with a link to the video at the league website.
Then there are other decisions. What kind of microphones will work best? How much time will a candidate have to respond to a question? (No more than two minutes.) Who would be responsible for providing water for the candidates? Who would collect questions from the audience written on index cards, who would review each question before passing it on and who would emcee the event?
"Do we want all 14 [candidates] on one night?" asked Janice Hummel, previous president of the St. Mary's group. The forum will include candidates for state delegates, country treasurer and county commissioners.
"That's too long," said Mary Novotny, membership chair.
"People come for the races they're interested in, then they leave," Grohsmeyer said. The group decided to host all the candidates on one evening.
Karen Everett, who is in charge of voters services for LWV-SMC and is employed as the county government public information officer, and Hummel discussed some of the questions they were proposing for the online voters guide.
Wearing a pin that was the word "vote," Dunlap said the St. Mary's County group, which currently includes 47 members, five of whom are men, focuses on voter education and voter registration.
They are political people who are required to remain nonpartisan in league work.
"I think a lot of people don't understand how nonpartisanship works," Dunlap said. "We don't even know [which of our members] belongs to what party."
"You don't ask that question," said longtime member, Florence Lanham, the group's liaison to elected officials.
Ninety years ago, when the first League of Women Voters was established, the same year women got the right to vote through the 19th Amendment, the founder, Carrie Chapman Catt, predicted that people would have trouble with the concept of nonpartisanship and how it's practiced, Dunlap said.
"But we are and we work hard at that," Dunlap said. Because if we're going to present information to the entire county, it has to be unbiased."
To maintain that nonpartisan stance, no board member can run for or hold elective office or participate in any way in any political campaign. Regular LWV-SMC members, however, are not restricted by those rules. However, when a member does run for office, they are not allowed to use their league membership in their campaign.
As the president of LWV-SMC since May 2009, Dunlap doesn't write letters to the editor to local papers like she used to and she doesn't participate personally in political campaigns anymore, she said. Recently, she was invited to attend a fundraiser for a county commission president, but turned the invitation down due to her position in the league.
"But I remain active, advocate for the league's positions … and I feel like I'm doing a lot of good for the people of St. Mary's County. We've registered well over 100 voters in the county during my presidency and held three well-attended issue-related forums."
The issues in which the LWV-SMC is particularly interested include a new library in Leonardtown, transparency in government, low-income housing, health care reform and wise energy and environmental planning within the county.
To learn more
The League of Women Voters of St. Mary's County will host a candidate forum for the primary election on Monday, Aug. 23, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Lexington Park library. A voter's guide including information on most races in Maryland, including those in St. Mary's County, will go live Aug. 17 at vote.lwvmd.org. For more information on the League of Women Voters of St. Mary's County, see http://smc1.lwvmd.org/n/.
