League of Women Voters of Florida

The Florida State League of Women Voters was founded on March 31, 1921 by May Mann Jennings, at a meeting in Jacksonville.[2] It immediately voted to affiliate with the national League of Women Voters, although unlike the national organization and the Leagues in other states, the FSLWV was not the successor of a suffrage organization.[2] In the 1920s the FSLWV included many of the most prominent women in the state and was a strongly feminist movement, with women's issues at the top of its priorities.[2] The first president of the league was Nellie Healy O'Hara of Lake Worth, Florida.[3][4]

Following a decline in the 1930s, the organization was reorganized in 1939 first as the Florida Non-Partisan League of Women Voters, subsequently renamed the League of Women Voters of Florida.[2] Its first project was a study of state government with a particular focus on the state's Constitution.[5] In 1949, the League worked to pass the 1949 permissive jury service statute.[6] Prior to 1949 and the work done by the LWVFL, women in Florida could not serve on juries.[7]

Early advocacy efforts encouraged the Florida Legislature to end the process of gerrymandering.[8] In 2011, Florida voters approved two gerrymandering-related redistricting amendments [9] which were placed in the State Constitution.[10] The LWVFL and other groups sued over the redistricting.[11] In addition, the LWVFL suspended voter registration operations for a year during that time, and when the gerrymandering aspects of the provision were blocked by a federal judge.[12] The gerrymandering was ruled unconstitutional in Florida since it strongly favored one party over another.[13] In 2012, the group worked again to register voters, this time with a five-week deadline.[12] The LWVFL continued to monitor district maps and redistricting.[11] The LWVFL also fought against a 2012 proposal to purge voting rolls which then President Deirdre Macnab called an effort to "disproportionately impact minority voters and erroneously disenfranchise those that are eligible."[14]

More than twenty nine local Leagues statewide[15] hold candidate forums, issue election year Voters Guides, and sponsor public seminars. Patricia Brigham[16] is the current President of the League of Women Voters of Florida. The Board of Directors[17] for the Florida League includes Cecile M. Scoon, Esq., First Vice President; Shawn Bartelt, Second Vice President; Mark Songer, Treasurer; Trish Neely, Secretary; and four additional directors. The League of Women Voters of Florida has four paid employees.[18]

LWVFL encourages civic engagement and is strictly nonpartisan, though it has been accused of partisanship.[19] LWVFL works tirelessly "to educate, mobilize, and register voters..." stated Attorney General Eric Holder.[20] The LWVFL also works with the non-partisan VoteRiders[21] organization to spread state-specific information on voter ID requirements.

LWVFL has engaged in a number of statewide and local projects, including recommending the initiation of a recycling program in St. Petersburg;[22] supporting the Central Florida commuter rail network SunRail;[23] endorsing a court case which ended voter purges held 90 days before a federal election;[24] striking down of restrictions on volunteer voter registration efforts;[25][26] the re-institution of early voting days and early voting on the Sunday before election day;[27] and the redrawing of both congressional and state legislative district lines after extensive litigation. As a result of that litigation, new district maps were implemented for the 2016 elections.[28] It has lobbied for gun safety for years,[29] but after the 2016 shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the group became a driving force in a statewide initiative to establish stricter gun safety guidelines through the Florida Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence.[30] In 2016, the LWVF hosted a screening of the documentary about gun violence, Making a Killing: Guns, Greed and the NRA.[31]

• Elections in Florida
  • 2020 Florida elections
• Timeline of women's suffrage in Florida
• Women's suffrage in Florida

• Official website