Donate to WERU Today!Host: Ann Luther, League of Women Voters of Maine
The mostly volunteer team at the League of Women Voters – Downeast who plan and coordinate this series includes: Martha Dickinson, Michael Fisher, Starr Gilmartin, Maggie Harling, Lisa Leaverton, Ann Luther, Rick Lyles, Judith Lyles, Wendilee O’Brien, Lane Sturtevant, Leah Taylor, and Linda Washburn.
Democracy Forum: Participatory Democracy, encouraging citizens to take an active role in government and politics
This month:
We’ll talk about how young people are engaging politically nationwide and here in Maine. What motivates them? What challenges do they face? What can the larger community do to support their efforts? Why is it important to the future of democracy?
Guest/s:
Cole Cochrane, Co-founder, Maine Youth Action
Mahnoor Hussain, Program Director, CIRCLE
Anna Siegel, founding member of Maine Youth Climate Justice and co founder of Maine Youth Action
To learn more about this topic:
The teen brain: Mysteries and misconceptions | Knowable, April 2023
24 Ways to Grow Voters Before 2024 | CIRCLE, April 2023
The Youth Vote in 2022 | CIRCLE, April 2023
LWVME Youth Voting Age Study Info Session, April, 2023
How the Youth Vote Is Being Suppressed – Long Story Short | The Daily Show – YouTube, March, 2023
Making our ‘civic deserts’ more fertile – Island Institute, April, 2023
GOP lawyer Cleta Mitchell decries ease of ‘campus voting’ in private RNC pitch – The Washington Post, April, 2023
About the host:
Ann currently serves as Treasurer of the League of Women Voters of Maine and leads the LWVME Advocacy Team. She served as President of LWVME from 2003 to 2007 and as co-president from 2007-2009. In her work for the League, Ann has worked for greater public understanding of public policy issues and for the League’s priority issues in Clean Elections & Campaign Finance Reform, Voting Rights, Ethics in Government, Ranked Choice Voting, and Repeal of Term Limits. Representing LWVME at Maine Citizens for Clean Elections, she served that coalition as co-president from 2006 to 2011. She remains on the board of MCCE and serves as Treasurer. She is active in the LWV-Downeast and hosts their monthly radio show, The Democracy Forum, on WERU FM Community Radio -which started out in 2004 as an recurring special, and became a regular monthly program in 2012. She was the 2013 recipient of the Baldwin Award from the ACLU of Maine for her work on voting rights and elections. She joined the League in 1998 when she retired as Senior Vice President at SEI Investments. Ann was a founder of the MDI Restorative Justice Program, 1999 – 2000, and served on its Executive Board.
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