(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "Prairie Pulse."

Coming up a little bit later in the show, we'll hear some music from the duo MorningBird.

But first, joining me now is our guest, Lyn Dockter-Pinnick.

Thanks for joining us today.

You are the current secretary and the incoming president for the League of Women Voters of the Red River Valley.

So let's get started with that, and tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.

- Well, I am a North Dakota native.

I've lived in the Moorhead area now about four years, and have been active in League of Women Voters for about 20 years.

And I'm passionate about the work of the league, and excited to talk to you about it.

- Well, there you go.

For our viewers and listeners out there, what is the League of Women Voters?

- The League of Women Voters has been around for approximately a hundred years.

We were created about the same time that women got the right to vote about 106 years ago.

And the idea behind it is to provide information for, at that time, newly-able-to-vote women, and to provide information about candidates, and to help people make an informed decision when they go to the polling place.

- Is the league a non-partisan group?

Tell us about that.

- We are.

We are non-partisan, but we are not immune to issues.

In other words, we are issue-focused, non-partisan.

And so the work that we do around voting and voting rights, voting information, occasionally then taps into issues, because voting rights are an important issue and often on the ballot.

- Okay, now I understand you are a nonprofit group, and so how are you funded?

- Well, the most important way we're funded is through our members.

We pay dues, and we're part of a national organization, and so we receive support from being part of the National League of Women Voters as well.

But it's member-supported, just like very public.

We are member-supported, and we do not receive any federal money, any federal funding.

It's not only supported by our members, but we raise money through selling lovely sweatshirts and t-shirts, which you can buy online specifically that are related to voting.

So we do a variety of things to support our work.

- Now do you have paid staff, or are you all volunteers?

- On the local level, we are completely volunteers.

In each state, such as Minnesota, there are a few paid staff.

There's a few paid staff on the national level, but nationally, 95% of the work of the League of Women Voters is by volunteers such as myself.

- Well, there, you mentioned your chapter.

So tell us a little bit more about the area that your chapter covers, and maybe a little bit about Minnesota and North Dakota chapters.

- Sure, we are unique in that we are, we have been, until recently, the only chapter in the United States that covers two different states.

And that's an important distinction for us, because the Fargo-Moorhead area has always worked across the river, and we have, you know, shared issues, shared concerns that are beyond just the river.

And so the League of Women Voters of the Red River Valley covers Fargo and Moorhead, West Fargo, any of the surrounding areas in this community, and thus, we have to address and we do address the issues that are similar but different in each state.

North Dakota, for example, is the only state that you don't have to register to vote.

And Minnesota, like the other 48, you know, there is voter registration.

So when we're providing information and education about voting, we have to be very careful to make those distinctions.

- I guess that could get confusing a little bit, but how many members do you have in your chapter?

- We have about 180 members in the League of Women Voters of the Red River Valley, and of that, about two-thirds are North Dakota residents, and about one-third are Minnesota residents, and we're growing all the time.

In fact, that number represents a pretty significant increase for us over the last couple of years.

- So what's the general demographic of your membership?

- Well, although a lot of members are about my age, there are a growing number of young women who are interested in League of Women Voters.

And you know, it is an absolute important point that when you want to grow your membership, you have to start 'em young.

And so we try to work with local colleges and universities to tabling at those events to tell people about what the League of Women Voters is all about to grow that younger membership.

- Well, there you go, and, well, let's go back up and talk a little bit more about what kinda work do you do in the Red River Valley?

What does your chapter really do?

- So we do a variety of things, and one of the things that probably is most familiar to people is a monthly event that we have that's called First Fridays.

So on the first Friday of every month, we do an educational informative event at the Sons of Norway.

It's 12 to 1, free and open to the public.

And we have a variety of speakers all year long from September until May.

And then in the summer, in June and July, on the last Monday of the month, we do an evening event at the Moorhead Public Library.

That's also informative speakers, like this summer in July, for example, both the Cass County and Clay County officials will be talking about election security on that last Monday in July.

- Well, you mentioned, or we talked, there's five chapters of League of Women Voters in North Dakota.

- [Lyn] That's correct.

- And maybe over 50 in Minnesota.

But do those chapters do similar things?

- Yes and no.

One of the great things about the League of Women Voters is voting rights, voting education, candidate information, candidate forums.

Those are kind of the staple of League of Women Voters.

In fact, we're the oldest consecutive organization in the country that's been doing candidate forums.

And again, back to our origin, that was to help women know about the candidates they were voting for.

And so virtually every chapter, we'll do those kinds of things.

Candidate forums, every chapter contributes information to their local VOTE411, which provides information about voting.

But some of the different kinds of things that I mentioned, such as our First Friday, every chapter does some kind of education programming.

They may be called different things, but there's a lot of similarity in that all chapters are trying to provide information, educate voters, and encourage people to vote.

You know, the reality is that voting turnout, particularly in North Dakota, where it can be under the national average, is an important thing to educate, to inform, to ensure people vote.

- You know, does this outreach include education on like voting materials like mail-in ballots and voter registration?

- Absolutely, in fact, we're starting a new initiative in the Fargo-Moorhead area where we're taking information to assisted living facilities, so that everybody, regardless of the demographic and their access, can get the information.

We try to provide information to schools.

We try to provide information in a variety of ways.

- Well, does the League of Women Voters educate on local and statewide candidates?

- Well, if you look at our VOTE411 website, you'll see that that's very specific, 'cause we really emphasize vote local.

There's a lot of ways to get information about national candidates.

And so our candidate forums and the information we really drive tends to be more local.

So the Canada forums, being an example, will be like the upcoming Canada forums in Fargo, for example, on May 6th and 7th, will be for the commission races, will be for the mayor races, and will be local races.

- The League of Women Voters states its mission is empower voters and defend democracy.

Can you tell us what that means?

- So, from the perspective of voting rights, if you look at the history of our country, you know, we are now reaching our 250th year.

Women have had the right to vote for about 106 of those years.

Many other groups of people have struggled to have voting privileges and voting rights.

And so defending democracy begins with people being able to exercise the most fundamental right as a democratic society and the right to vote.

And so when we talk about defending democracy, we're talking about defending voting rights, and making sure that there's access to that privilege for all citizens.

- Besides voting, are there other issues or topics the league focuses on in educating communities?

- Voting rights is really what we're all about.

There may be side issues related to that, but defending democracy through access to voting and everything that represents in terms of, even with new Americans at naturalization ceremonies, and making sure that new citizens understand how to access those voting rights.

Voting rights is fundamentally what drives our mission.

- In your opinion, which of these issues has the most impact on voting in the United States?

- Well, I think right now, there are a number of issues related to voting rights, because there are some people who have the misconception that there's a lot of voter fraud, and that there's a lot of issues around election security.

In both the state of North Dakota and Minnesota, there are multiple, multiple layers of election security.

And the beauty of our system is that states control election security.

And again, just mentioning that we will have the Cass and Clay County people visiting us at the end of July, but we've done that on numerous occasions to tell people how safe our system really is.

- Okay.

Where can people get more information?

- You can find us on our website, the League of Women Voters of the Red River Valley.

We have a Facebook page with the same name, and come to our annual meeting this Friday night.

- Well, Lyn, thanks for joining us today to talk about the League of Women Voters in Red River Valley Chapter.

Up next, we will have Sarah King, a board member for the League of Women Voters to talk more about voting in America.

(upbeat music) We're back now with Sarah King, a current board member of the League of Women Voters.

Sarah, thanks for joining us.

- Thank you.

- As we get started, as we do, tell us about yourself and your background, maybe.

- I have been, I was a long time educator in Moorhead schools, began working in 1977.

That gives away a little bit of an age thing, but continued on in one capacity or another until 2018.

So I've been retired since then.

- Alright, so what is your role with the Red River Valley chapter of the League of Women Voters?

- I'm a board member, and happy to be an at-large board member at the moment.

- Okay, so what kind of role would you say groups like the League of Women Voters play in elections, whether they be local or national?

- Educational, informational, largely trying to get people available and out, and have access to the polls, and know where their voting places are, get them aware of who the candidates are.

The forums are very important.

So from a local level, we're all about voter access.

- Real quick, what position does the league take, or what do you have when it comes to elections and voter security?

- That's determined by the state.

Each state has their own layers of security that are involved in voting.

North Dakota and Minnesota have slightly different things going on, and each Secretary of State is involved in all of what those rules and regulations are.

If people are curious about the levels of security, the best way to explain it or experience it is to become an election judge volunteer.

It's voluntary, well, you volunteer, but you also get paid a stipend to be an election judge, and that begins the education, the real education.

The League of Women Voters provides general information about voter security, and how safe it is, and so on.

But the nitty-gritty happens in the election process, and you have a real respect for the layers of care and security that go into protecting each of our voter ballots.

- One mission of the League of Women Voters is to fight voter suppression.

As we get started with this discussion, can you tell us what voter suppression is?

- Well, voter suppression is, you know, as complex, in a way, as gerrymandering.

You know, gerrymandering is drawing lines that favor one party over another in that area, so that it doesn't matter if, say, for example, if the way you've drawn the lines that you include 90% of voting Democrats.

Well, no matter whether all the Republicans vote in that area, they aren't going to be able to change the outcome of that area to vote.

So that's a kind of voter suppression of Republicans in that instance.

Another would be if you make fewer polling spots open during an election, you know, say you start out with 20 and then you reduce to five, it's going to suppress a lot of people being able to get to the poll to vote if you have transportation issues or mobility issues of any kind.

So reducing the polling sites suppresses, and then you go back to, you know, women didn't have the right to vote for a long time.

That's big time.

Half of the population was suppressed from voting.

- I was gonna ask, who has voter suppression affected most in the past?

You may have just said, (Sarah laughs) but I understand there's a SAVE Act that's out there.

Does the League of Women Voters support legislation like the SAVE Act?

That's the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act?

- No.

- And why or why not?

- Yeah, no, the league does not support that act, and now it's a kind of a suite of acts in the Senate.

The SAVE Act has passed the House, and now is in the Senate, and it includes three different proposed acts together.

We don't support it, because it seeks to suppress voters a great deal.

For example, it's predicted that 69 million women would be impacted because they have changed their name when they got married, so their birth certificate doesn't match their current legal name.

And the SAVE Act would require documentation of citizenship, and the birth certificate is one of those ways, but if the name doesn't match, then you have to find another form of certified documentation to be determined by the states.

It could be a certified marriage certificate or a certified divorce decree if there was a change after a divorce.

And then you have to still find another form of documentation, like a voter ID.

I don't mean voter ID, a license, a driver's license.

- Identification.

- That is identification.

So it requires a lot of effort and even expense to get those kinds of documents in place to vote.

So if you are looking at 69 million women, who, between, if the act passed today, to be ready to vote in November, would take some effort to do that, okay?

And then a number of, so military IDs would no longer be sufficient.

Well, you would assume that you're a citizen if you're serving in the military, right?

Native American tribal IDs would no longer be sufficient.

You'd have to have other forms.

So that's suppressing those groups of people.

Another 21 million people are expected to be impacted, who are seniors that are living in assisted living or living in rural areas, or people who are poor, people who have to travel a distance to get to a polling site.

The other requirement in here is that you have to show these documents in person at a polling place to be determined by the state.

You no longer could mail in registration or do registration online.

So there's a lot of things that could severely impact the number of people who are able to vote.

And these are all eligible voters.

We're not talking about ineligible voters right now, we're talking about eligible voters who are impeded from being able to vote.

- So what safeguards are in place right now to ensure voting in, of course, Minnesota and North Dakota, or legal voters?

- In North Dakota, it's a fairly stringent requirement to show documentation of citizenship, not in quite the way that is outlined in the SAVE Act in North Dakota.

So you don't register ahead of time in North Dakota where you do in Minnesota.

In North Dakota, you have to show forms of ID that determine that you're eligible to vote.

In Minnesota, people who register, it's relatively easy, because if you have a driver's license and you have a form that shows that you're a resident, those are the two requirements for registration.

And then when you go to vote, you sign your signature, and those signatures are compared, and there are two witnesses, at least two witnesses to the signature at the voting poll.

And then all of those things are checked once the ballots get to the county level.

- Another item that's under scrutiny, and you mentioned it here, the mail-in ballots, earlier.

In areas like Northwest Minnesota and North Dakota, how important are absentee ballots?

- Well, they're very important.

They're important for anybody in the military who are overseas, and there's thousands and thousands of people who are using absentee ballots safely.

If you have mobility issues, an absentee ballot is critical if you can't get to the polls.

If you're on vacation and you can't vote where you normally vote, you can pre-schedule yourself to vote absentee.

They're all, it's a safe process for getting your vote to the poll, and very little fraud is associated with that.

- Well, you say that, so what would happen, though, if absentee ballots were to be eliminated?

- It'd be another disenfranchisement.

You know, all those people would not be able to vote.

The people who are out of country but are US citizens wouldn't be able to voice their opinions on the election.

- So what is the League of Women Voters doing to continually support voter access?

- We're lobbying in the way to encourage our members and anybody else in the public to call their legislators to make sure that they vote no on the SAVE Act, and repeated calls, repeated letters to say, "No, we do not support the SAVE Act."

- So even though you're a non-partisan group- - Right.

- I understand, but you do educate on legislation, but you do take a stance on certain legislation, it sounds like.

- Yes, you know, it's about the mission to keep our democracy that's dependent on free and fair elections.

You know, that's the underpinning of our democracy.

- Well, we are out of time, but if people want more information, where can they go?

- They can go to the League of Women Voters, the website, and we'd welcome anybody's questions and so on, thank you.

- Thank you for joining us today.

Stay tuned for more.

(upbeat music) MorningBird from Hibbing, Minnesota is a duo who encapsulate an eclectic style of folk Americana music with a hint of gospel and Appalachian influences.

The chemistry of Bob Wheeler and Jill Burkes brings an organic feel to their performance.

Their songs are edgy, free-spirited, and incorporate an element of nature that is both refreshing and authentic.

(gentle bluegrass music) ♪ I'll tell you the story of when we almost died ♪ ♪ We were going down a mountain so steep ♪ ♪ That it made Jill cry ♪ ♪ Now first you gotta go up before you come down ♪ ♪ We parked for a night just outta town ♪ ♪ And when I woke up in the mornin', I had to piss ♪ ♪ I locked my keys in the van, man, and it happened so quick ♪ ♪ Then I unlocked the door with a stick through the window ♪ ♪ The only time that happened was in Colorado ♪ ♪ We were goin' up a mountain ♪ ♪ Checkin' out the beauty ♪ ♪ When we reached the summit, that's when I began to worry ♪ ♪ Lookin' for a pullout, hoping we could stop ♪ ♪ But when I saw the smoke, I knew those things were shot ♪ ♪ When you're livin on the edge and you're pushing your luck ♪ ♪ Better thank your lucky stars and never give up ♪ ♪ I can't see the future, I don't live in the past ♪ ♪ We just got this moment, and it might be our last ♪ ♪ Well, I burnt my brakes coming down the pass ♪ ♪ It was seven percent, and we were going fast ♪ ♪ There were no guardrails, hairpin curves ♪ ♪ And when I stomped on the pedal, started to swerve ♪ ♪ I could smell the rubber, and I could hear the road ♪ ♪ It was the scaredest that I've ever been ♪ ♪ The truth be told ♪ ♪ I've got both hands on the wheel ♪ ♪ And my eyes straight ahead ♪ ♪ I turned up the radio 'cause I love the Grateful Dead ♪ ♪ White crosses all scattered to my right ♪ ♪ Of all the travelers that have lost their lives ♪ ♪ It's a silent reminder that things can go wrong ♪ ♪ But when we made it to the bottom, I wrote this song ♪ ♪ When you're livin' on the edge ♪ ♪ And you're pushing your luck ♪ ♪ Better thank your lucky stars and never give up ♪ ♪ I can't see the future, I don't live in the past ♪ ♪ We just got this moment, now let's make it last ♪ (gentle bluegrass music continues) ♪ From now on when we go out on the road ♪ ♪ I do everything that I've been told ♪ ♪ I check the brakes, the radiator too ♪ ♪ 'Cause I want this thing safe, for me and you ♪ ♪ Now I got everything that I think I might need ♪ ♪ I got that gypsy feeling and I wanna be free ♪ ♪ When you're livin' on the edge ♪ ♪ And you're pushing your luck ♪ ♪ Better thank your lucky stars and never give up ♪ ♪ I can't see the future, and I don't live in the past ♪ ♪ We just got this moment, now let's make it last ♪ ♪ We just got this moment, now let's make it last ♪ - Well, let's all we have on "Prairie Pulse" this week.

And as always, thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008, and by the members of Prairie Public.