ONE WILPF Goes Public

Read the Alliance for Democracy’s magazine Justice Rising: Grassroots Solutions to Corporate Power. The theme of the Fall 2016 issue was “The People’s Vote Must Count: Reclaim Elections, Restore Voting Rights, Protect Our Ballot.” Print out individual articles or full issues here. To order back print issues contact AFD or call the organization’s Hudson, MA, office: 978-333-7971.

By the ONE WILPF Call Team

On Thursday, March 8^th—International Women’s Day—WILPF US sponsored its first ever PUBLIC ONE WILPF Call. It focused on promoting WILPF as an organization that empowers women organizers.  The second part of the call was devoted to two speakers who provided valuable information on election integrity.

The call attracted 17 new registrants, and 8 of them joined the call. The future for Public Calls to help boost recruiting looks promising. Feedback was that the call was too long. We’ll work on fixing that in subsequent public calls. Important to note that the majority of callers stayed on throughout the whole call even given the length.

The call was divided into two sections:

Standing on Their Shoulders

This powerpoint celebrates many of WILPF’s most amazing women organizers and you may learn facts you didn’t know about some familiar faces and voices. The powerpoint and script are available here.

The presentation is great for branches to use with their own members or with wider audiences to inform the public about WILPF, raise our visibility, and recruit new members.

Grab Them by the Midterms

(Advance Audio Cursor to 49:30). This section of the call focused on voter rights, countering voter suppression, and protecting election integrity. The speakers responded to the following topics:

• What can we do now to protect the right to vote and ensure our elections are fair and honest during the Primary and November Mid-Term Elections?
• What part does the upcoming US Census play in election redistricting?
• How can we ensure an accurate US Census?

BREAKING NEWS: Citizenship question added to Census against strong objections of progressives. Read an article from The Nation article here about why this decision is dangerous.

The speakers provided suggestions about how to:

• Guarantee accurate vote counts
• End voter suppression
• Have an accurate censes
• End partisan redistricting (aka: gerrymandering)

The featured speakers were:

• Karen McKim, former County Clerk candidate for Dane County, Wisconsin
• Jan BenDor, Coordinator, Michigan Election Reform Alliance and National Election Defense Coalition Board Member
• Nancy Price, Co-Chair, Alliance for Democracy

If you missed the call or wish to listen again, use this link for the audio recording.

Find the full notes (with wonderful links to resources and more information) and audio link at this link.

The next ONE WILPF Call is on Thursday, April 12^th at 4 pm pacific / 7 pm eastern

This call will be open to WILPF US members only. Our topic will be Earth Day, and our featured speaker will be environmental scientist Nancy Wood on the importance of preserving biodiversity. We’ll also ask branches to report on their Solidarity Plans for Earth Day.