About the League

The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan political organization encouraging the informed and active participation of citizens in government. It influences public policy through education and advocacy. We never support or oppose any political party or candidate.

The League of Women Voters has two separate and distinct roles.

• Voters Service/Citizen Education: we present unbiased nonpartisan information about elections, the voting process, and issues.

• Action/Advocacy: we are also nonpartisan, but, after study, we use our positions to advocate for or against particular policies in the public interest.

Our Vision, Beliefs, and Intentions guide our activities.

The League of Women Voters was founded in 1920, by the suffragists who led the fight for voting rights for American women. The activities of the League have always been rooted in the basic principles of the democratic process. We believe that citizens play a central role in influencing public policy and bringing about needed change.

In the 1930s, the League took an active role in development of the Social Security Act and child labor standards. In the following decade, we were early advocates for international peace building through the United Nations, the World Bank, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). We were active helping to halt the McCarthy "witch hunts" which plagued America during the 1950s. Over the next three decades, the League worked relentlessly to further equality of opportunity in education, employment and housing as a means to combat discrimination.

We pushed for issues as far ranging as water pollution reforms to world peace through arms control. In the 1990s, the League achieved enactment of the landmark National Voter Registration Act (the Motor Voter law).

Locally, we will be celebrating our 50th anniversary in March 2007. The League was instrumental in starting the Gifted and Talented Program in Norfolk schools, and in the preservation of the Great Dismal Swamp. Current activities focus on building consensus on regional government cooperation and on transportation. We have worked with a host of other local agencies to promote positive solutions to public policy issues through community education and advocacy.

For more information on the LWV-SHR, see the Archives at the Old Dominion University Library, with a short history of the LWV-SHR.

For more history about the national League, read a short History of the League of Women Voters.