Dr. Anna Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt, founder of the League of Women Voters, lead an estimated 20,000 supporters in a women's suffrage march on New York's Fifth Ave. in 1915.
AP Photo
League of Women Voters Marks 106 Years of Civic Engagement, Reflects on History and Modern Challenges
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Asia Tabb
AP Photo
Dr. Anna Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt, founder of the League of Women Voters, lead an estimated 20,000 supporters in a women's suffrage march on New York's Fifth Ave. in 1915.
AIRED; February 12, 2026
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As the League of Women Voters approaches its 106th anniversary, the organization is reflecting on its deep roots in the women’s suffrage movement and its ongoing mission to expand voter access and education across Pennsylvania.
“The first thing to know is that the League comes directly out of the women’s suffrage movement,” said Dr. Amy Widestrom, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, during a recent interview on The Spark.
Advocates for women’s rights began organizing almost immediately after the country’s founding, Widestrom explained, because women were excluded from both voting rights and basic citizenship protections under the Constitution.
“At the founding of the country, women were not granted voting rights, or really any citizenship rights,” she said. Married women could not earn their own money, retain custody of their children, or speak publicly in official settings. “When they got married, they were the property of their husband.”
The suffrage movement gained momentum throughout the 19th century, operating largely as a state-by-state campaign. Women in some Western states, including Wyoming, secured the right to vote decades before the 19th Amendment was ratified nationally in 1920.
After women won the right to vote, suffrage organizations transitioned into a new mission: helping newly enfranchised voters navigate the political system. The League of Women Voters was officially founded on Feb. 14, 1920.
“Our birthday is coming up and we’re very excited about that. We’ll be 106 years old,” Widestrom said.
In Pennsylvania, the League’s origins trace back to a suffrage organization in Chester County known as the League for Pennsylvania Women Citizens. When the national League was created, the group changed its name to the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania.
“We have been around in the state as long as or longer than the League of Women Voters nationally,” Widestrom said.
While the organization was born out of the fight for women’s voting rights, it has long maintained a nonpartisan stance — a distinction Widestrom says is essential.
“Women are not monolithic,” she said. “We have a variety of partisan beliefs and religious beliefs and just sort of world outlooks among our members.”
The League does not endorse candidates. Instead, it focuses on expanding voter access, empowering voters, and advocating for policies approved by its membership.
“It’s actually extraordinarily important that we are nonpartisan, which means that we only work to advance voting rights, voter access, and policies that our members vote on and approve of,” Widestrom explained. “To achieve our goals, we’ll work with anybody.”
Despite its name, the League is not limited to women. “We are not just for women,” she said. “We have lots of male members and we all have women in our lives and people in our lives who need advocacy.”
At the same time, Widestrom acknowledged that the suffrage movement — like many civil rights movements — was historically exclusionary, particularly toward women of color.
“So many of our civil rights movements… were exclusionary,” she said. Even expansions of voting rights for men were limited primarily to white men at certain points in history.
“If we don’t talk about that, then we don’t acknowledge that even the institutions that advance rights can fall prey to systemic racism or systemic sexism,” Widestrom said. “It forces us to recognize that even today… we need people to feel like they belong. And if that isn’t happening, that’s on us to fix.”
She added that confronting that history is central to the League’s modern mission. “It is really important to continue to call that out and to call forward,” she said, noting the organization’s responsibility to advocate for those who feel “least empowered in civic life.”
Today, much of the League’s work focuses on reducing barriers to voting — whether those barriers are logistical, informational, or psychological.
“Voting is still the number one way that people are civically engaged,” Widestrom said. Yet turnout remains relatively low in many elections.
One challenge, she noted, is simply understanding the ballot. “In Pennsylvania, we vote every six months, which is a lot,” she said. “That requires us to know a lot.”
To help voters navigate that complexity, the League operates Vote411.org, a website that allows users to enter their address and view a personalized ballot preview, along with candidates’ responses to League questionnaires.
“We copy and paste their answers and put them in Vote411 so you can hear their words and learn about who’s on your ballot,” Widestrom said.
Beyond voter education, the League also advocates for policy changes designed to expand access, including early voting, same-day voter registration, and opening primary elections to unaffiliated voters.
“In Pennsylvania, we have 1.4 million people who can’t vote in our primary elections,” Widestrom noted, referring to independent voters barred from participating in closed primaries.
Even with these efforts, Widestrom says many voters — especially young people — feel disconnected from the political process.
“One is frankly the time it takes to do it,” she said. Unlike states that conduct elections entirely by mail, Pennsylvania voters must cast ballots in person between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. on Election Day unless they request a mail-in ballot in advance.
“We have children and jobs and people we care for… and we just don’t have the time frankly in our modern life,” she said.
Another barrier is the effort required to research candidates and issues. “It’s hard to find this information if it’s not your full-time job,” Widestrom said. The rise of misinformation has made the process even more confusing for some voters.
“The amount of misinformation and disinformation that we’re seeing makes it even harder,” she said. “It makes people feel confused and unsure.”
Finally, Widestrom said the tone of modern politics is pushing some people away.
“All of the partisanship, all of the polarization and the division and the sort of conflict and the fighting — it’s just really turning people off,” she said. “Especially young people. They just don’t see themselves in it.”
Despite those challenges, the League continues its work to ensure that voting remains accessible and informed for all eligible citizens.
As Widestrom put it, the goal is simple but enduring: “Expand that access and open the ballot for all eligible citizens.”
