The League of Women Voter’s Want You to Vote in Your Local Election

John Harrison: [00:00:00] Hello again everyone. It’s John Harrison on X 1 0 1, always classic. Joining me in the studio is the President of the League of Women’s Voters for Cortland County, Kim Cameron. Kim, thanks so much for joining.

Kim Cameron: Thank you so much. It’s great to be here today.

John Harrison: I’m really happy to have you in the studio. We are having a, a great conversation before we jump in and turn the mics on, but folks, it’s an important time of year.

It’s time for voting and we’re not talking about. Presidential or statewide vote. We’re looking at the local level here, which to me, I think is, is one of the most important votes you can participate in. Kim, do you wanna talk a little bit about what the League of Women Voters does and, and kind of what your mission statement is?

Sure.

Kim Cameron: We are a local organization, but we’re also part of a statewide group as well as national. So you’ll find us all over the country. We also have an international status as well as a delegate to the un. But let’s talk about what we do right here in Cortland. We are a nonpartisan organization. We are focused on encouraging people to be engaged in [00:01:00] their community, as well as being engaged in local voting, basically.

So that’s our focus, right? This minute we meet on a regular basis and we are always looking for new people who are interested in being involved.

John Harrison: Yeah. Well, hey, if you meet on a regular basis and you’re looking for new people at. Where can people find you guys?

Kim Cameron: You can find us online at the League of Women Voters of Cortland County.

Just go and and search that on your, on the website. And let’s see, you’ll find us on Facebook as well as on Instagram. So you’ll find us all over the place.

John Harrison: Perfect. Yeah. It’s gonna be hard for people to miss you, I guess. Yeah. Which is something like that. Yeah. And that’s, you want to be visible, which is.

Something we were talking about before is that coming up with this local election, you said there were 97 yes. Positions up per vote. With 60 some odd people running, you have it

Kim Cameron: backwards. 63 elections. Right? Right. With 97 people running. So this year we [00:02:00] decided that we were gonna really focus on local elections.

Yeah. And the National League has a website called Vote 4 1 1. Dot org that is used for all sorts of elections. So you can just go to that website, put in your address, and it will tell you everything that is going to be on your ballot. Now, in the past, we’ve always used that simply for. National and state elections, but this year we decided we really wanted it to be for local elections.

So we’ve worked really, really hard to build the guide for local elections. So now with those 63. Elections that we have. Each one of them, when you go to it, you’ll find out that there’s a little blurb explaining what the actual job is and who is in office right now, when their term started and when they’re finished, [00:03:00] their term is finished, and then who is actually running for that race this year?

Finally, if people have done it, they have answers to questions, general questions that we ask them. So of the 97 people who are running, we’ve reached out to all of them numerous times, and 27, as of this morning, have actually filled in the questionnaire on the guide. So sometimes we can’t get ahold of people.

We’re not positive we’re getting through to them, but we did send everybody a letter, so they did physically receive a letter from us regarding this.

John Harrison: Yeah. Doing your due diligence and, and having this tool. At, I mean, our disposal as a voter, as somebody who’s registered to vote, and thinks that. That is probably the most important thing you can do if you want to participate in democracy is get out there and vote.

And especially on the local level, knowing who you’re voting for so that you don’t just say, oh, I’m just gonna go straight down the party line. And that is [00:04:00] something we were talking about before with the League of Women’s Voters. One of your important stances that you are non-partisan, correct? We.

Kim Cameron: Absolutely nonpartisan. We couldn’t care less what party you belong to. And you know, let’s talk a little bit about what the difference is between nonpartisan and bipartisan.

John Harrison: Yeah. Because you hear bipartisan thrown around all the time, bipartisan bill, bipartisan this, bipartisan that. But nonpartisan doesn’t come up as often.

Kim Cameron: Exactly. And nonpartisan is really different. We are not in support of either party. We are simply in support of voting rights, getting people engaged in the voting system, especially here at the local level. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that we did two years ago, we did a study with SUNY Cortland.

Mm-hmm. And. In that study, we looked at the demographics of who actually voted in local elections over the last 10 years here in Cortland County, as [00:05:00] well as of their counties around us. But in Cortland, on average over the last 10 years in these local election years, only 28% of registered voters. Actually vote.

Wow.

John Harrison: Only 28% are actually getting out there and voting

Kim Cameron: of registered voters

John Harrison: of register and that Yep. Of registered voters. So if you’re not registered, register and then follow through and make your vote. And it’s exactly, I feel like today too, it’s, it’s easier than ever really to get out there and vote.

There’s so many different ways that you can do it. And I know the league, promotes all the different ways that you can get out there and vote and really. Make your voice heard.

Kim Cameron: You can have a mail-in ballot. Mm-hmm. You can, vote early. Nine days of early voting are now available to us. These. As well as obviously voting on the day of, but these resources are available here in New York, but they’re not necessarily available in other states.

Right. Yeah. So it we kind of forget that. Yeah. Because we live in New York and we don’t think about it. But the [00:06:00] truth is, in other states, they don’t have access to the ballot like we do.

John Harrison: Yeah. And it really is a privilege to be able to, to get out there, especially, I mean, the early voting saved me and, and every election I make sure I’m out there.

Before, I know the line’s gonna be at its longest. I like to think contrary to the crowd, so I Exactly. I try to get in there when I can, but these local elections are so important. It decides who’s gonna be running your schools, who’s gonna be, you know, running all the, all the little jobs that. Add up, not, not to call these jobs little ’cause these jobs are huge, for a town to run.

’cause you, I, I feel like people have this, this conception that, oh, it only matters, you know, who our congressman is and who the president is. But it, it really matters so much on the local level.

Kim Cameron: Well, not only that, the, the people who are putting in the hard work to run our local villages and towns.

Yeah, they’re working hard. And it’s, it’s our responsibility Yeah. To, [00:07:00] to follow what they’re doing. Mm-hmm. And to pay attention. It is our neighborhoods. Yeah. It’s our communities. And we should support the people who are actually putting in the hard work. So by not voting, by not going to meetings and things, we are just telling them we don’t care.

John Harrison: Right.

Kim Cameron: And we do care.

John Harrison: Yeah.

Kim Cameron: And that’s the thing. Yeah. We care a lot. So one of the other things the league is doing this year is, we are going to have two forums that I would like to mention. Yeah. One of them is going to be for the Preble supervisor. Mm-hmm. Preble Town Supervisor. That is a contested election this year.

And the second one is going to be for the Homer Village trustees. So the way these. These forms will work is they will be online. You will have to register in advance. Mm-hmm. And the information, I think you guys have the information, but I can certainly tell you the Homer Village Trustee Forum will be on [00:08:00] Tuesday, October 14th at.

8:00 PM and the Preble Supervisor Forum will be on Thursday, October 16th at 7:00 PM

John Harrison: Amazing. And that’s a, a perfect way, especially for these contested elections, to know who’s running, what their stances are, what you can expect from them. Right. It’s just a, a good way to know what’s coming up.

Kim Cameron: Yeah. The way these are gonna be set up is we will be asking questions of the candidates.

They will not have the questions in advance. Mm-hmm. They will get an opportunity to introduce themselves. Then we will ask questions, and then we will also, when you actually register to attend the event, you can ask a question as well, and we will try to incorporate as many of those questions as we can into the forum.

As well.

John Harrison: Yeah. Excellent. And so the, this forum you guys are hosting a little bit late, you know, in a couple of weeks in October. But you have an event coming up. We do Monday, October 6th, I believe is Monday if I did the men math correctly. Yes, it is. Thank you you so much.

Kim Cameron: [00:09:00] Every month we have something called a dinner and discussion at the CNY Living History Center, and it’s always on the first Monday of every month.

So we get together at five o’clock to have dinner. That is usually hosted by CNY Living History Center. They cook a fantastic meal there. Yep. And then we have an event at six o’clock, usually a discussion of some sort. So this month we will be meeting, as you said, on October 6th. And we will have Jason Page, who is a professor at SUNY Cortland, and he’s gonna be talking to us about ai.

Oh, okay. And how we can use AI to promote. Democracy, in positive ways. Excellent. So we’re really excited about that.

John Harrison: Yeah, that’ll be really great. Yeah. Using that, that new technology, to, to really get the word out there. You know, get out and vote, get out and participate. And again, you know, that’s kind of what, what this all ties back to all exactly.

All the messaging brings it back to just get out there and exercise your, your right. And in [00:10:00] the case of New York, where we can vote early, we can mail in vote. It’s, it’s not just a right but kind of a privilege when you don’t have that access in other states knowing that you have it here and taking full advantage of it.

That’s so important, folks.

Kim Cameron: Yeah, and you know, you can register for that. You can go to our website, lw v cortland county.org, and there you will find a registration form that you just click on that we just need to know how many people are coming specifically for dinner, because we obviously have to prepare for that.

John Harrison: And the, you said the dinner comes before the discussion? Right? The

Kim Cameron: dinner comes before we do have to charge for the dinner. So we charge $18 per person for the dinner care, price

John Harrison: for a meal,

Kim Cameron: and then the discussion is completely free. So people can choose whether they want to come for both or just one.

John Harrison: Excellent. And you won’t be discussing anything on an empty stomach, so you don’t have to worry about any brain fog or, or focusing on, you know, oh, well, you know, when’s the pork chops coming out? Or What am I gonna have as a side dish? When’s dessert? You’re not gonna have to worry about any of that.

Kim Cameron: Right, right.

So yeah, we have [00:11:00] that and, you know, if I can put a plug in for some of the other things that we’re doing. Sure. Every two weeks in the Courtland Standard, we actually have a long form column. It’s called the League of Women Voters, Courtland County Legislative Co. Today. We talked about mail-in voting next week actually we’ll do two in a row.

This time will be about vote 4 1 1 and how you can connect with the forums, et cetera.

John Harrison: Excellent. Alright, well, Kim Cameron, president of the Lee Women’s Voters for Courtland County. Thank you so much for, for coming in. We’re running a little short on time. Any last minute things you wanna mention? Say, the floor is yours,

Kim Cameron: get out and vote.

It is so important. Get engaged in the local elections here in this area.

John Harrison: Alright, perfect. Well, thanks so much for joining me here on X 1 0 1 and folks listening in at home. It’s been John Harrison on X 1 0 1. Always classic.