In 2020, as the pandemic started shutting the world down, I joined the Rez Writers postcard group, an assortment of women with varying backgrounds, professions, and hobbies. We are connected through our involvement in Resonance Women’s Chorus of Boulder along with our great passion for democracy. We meet weekly, have written thousands of postcards together, and recently embarked on reading and discussing a small, powerful book titled When Women Vote.
When Women Vote is written by two politically-active women who happen to live in Denver: Amber McReynolds and Stephanie Donner. Their credentials speak volumes in themselves. You may recognize Amber’s name from her selection, under President Biden, to the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service. She also runs the National Vote at Home Institute, founded to expand voting by mail. Stephanie was Governor Hickenlooper’s Chief Legal Counsel and now runs the Emily Griffith Technical College.
Authors McReynolds and Donner state that they wrote their book to “Improve the voting experience for all voters and make it easier for more women to vote. Because when more women vote, more women get elected, and we prioritize policies that impact women and children.”
When Women Vote sheds light on how dramatically our so-called “united” states vary in their laws around voting and how laws in some states interfere with and prevent voting. The action steps laid out in the book offer a game plan for moving forward to make voting an equal opportunity regardless of where a U.S. voter resides.
When Women Vote, published in 2020, is a great companion piece to postcard writing. It provides context to what we do through a quick historical background brought into the present along with brief real-life stories about voters’ challenges and victories. And it references “role model states” where voting rights are protected for all citizens. In addition to its relevance to all of us Blue Wave (and other) postcard writers, it is an important book for high school- and college-age students to read. It will hopefully motivate them to take action to reform voting for all of the U.S.
- Barbra Weidlein