Voting is not a partisan issue
The Williamsburg Area League of Women Voters was recently criticized in The Last Word anonymously for signs that read “Vote Like Democracy Depends on It (It Does).” These are signs available through the U.S. League promoting the Vote 411 program. Anonymous claims that this makes the League a partisan organization.
The League of Women Voters was created 104 years ago following women winning the vote. The goals, then and now, are to encourage citizens to participate in our democratic process by exercising their right to vote and to educate voters about the issues. We register students who are about to turn 18 to vote, help new residents get properly registered and host forums where candidates from all parties can discuss the issues with voters. The Vote 411 program provides information on voting locations and provides the issue information supplied by all the candidates regardless of party affiliation.
The LWV does not tell anyone how to vote. We do not endorse political parties or candidates. We are totally apolitical. We know that our democracy (yes, it really is a republic as created by the Constitution, but we are a democracy) works best when everyone is involved.
Our democracy works best when those who vote understand the system and the issues. Making everyone better informed only makes better citizens. Please consider joining your local League of Women Voters in 2024! Men, women, students, everyone is welcome!
Voting is not a partisan issue! It is a right and a duty.
Susan BivinsPresident, Williamsburg Area League of Women Voters
___
Defend our democracy
I am currently reading a book titled “Blitzkrieg” by Len Deighton. In it, he describes how Adolf Hitler and the Nazis transformed Germany from a democracy into an autocracy with Hitler as dictator. Despite the fact that the publication date is 1979, I found the similarities between this transformation and what is going on today with Donald Trump and his MAGA supporters to be extremely disturbing.
For example, on pages 48-49 he writes: “Unlike most political parties, the Nazis never offered the voter a well-defined program of politics and economics that would bring peace and prosperity. Rather, they warned of … conspiracies that would destroy the world and … invasions that would bring doom to pure-blooded Aryan man.”
One has only to substitute MAGA supporters for Nazis to characterize what is going on today. Trump and Project 2025 leave no doubt of their intent to turn our democracy into an autocracy with Trump as a dictator. For some time, I have comforted myself with the belief that no matter how extreme Trump and his supporters were, our democratic institutions were strong enough to turn back these attempts. Now I am not so confident. The only way to end the threat that Trump poses once and for all is to defeat him in November. Choosing not to vote is not an answer. We must go to the polls and defend our democracy.
Douglas Wood, Williamsburg
