The following is the opinion and analysis of the writers:
The League of Women Voters of Greater Tucson recently became the League of Women Voters of Southern Arizona. For 85 years, we have proudly served the Tucson community. Now we are expanding our reach to include Pima, Cochise, Santa Cruz, Graham, Greenlee, Yuma and southern Pinal counties; in essence all of Southern Arizona south of the Gila River.
As an all-volunteer organization with more than 350 male and female members, this expansion will stretch our capacity to serve in the future as we continue our important work of empowering voters and defending democracy. While we look ahead to our expansion, we also celebrate our hard work in the greater Tucson area this past year and election cycle.
Our trained volunteers and partner organizations presented information regarding the Arizona state, Pima County, and City of Tucson propositions voters found on their ballot to nearly 1,000 people in 29 settings. These included Pima County Public Libraries, retirement communities and Cholla High School civics classes. Our recorded presentation received 2,700 views on our YouTube channel. We also distributed 3,000 “2026 Ballot Propositions” pamphlets, explaining the state propositions in both English and Spanish, to nearly all public library branches in Pima County and other locations throughout the community.
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We hosted candidate forums for TUSD governing board races, and the City Council races in Marana, Sahuarita and Oro Valley. These forums were well attended, and their recordings collectively received 1,600 views on our YouTube channel. Throughout the year, we registered voters at numerous settings including the Tucson Festival of Books and at Citizen Naturalization ceremonies. We also conducted our annual “Running and Winning” workshops, which connect high school girls to female elected officials and encourage them to become engaged leaders in our democracy.
Our voter information website, readysetvotetucson.org, received over 14,000 visits this election season. Visitors accessed our voter checklist, candidate position descriptions and ballot proposition information. It was especially helpful in directing voters to the County Recorder’s ballot tracking website. Our website also provided information on election dates and deadlines and how to find and contact your elected officials. For those who prefer a printed resource, our “Citizen’s Directory of Elected Officials” is published every year and available at most public libraries. Voters can also find Arizona-specific voting information at Vote411.org/Arizona.
The League accomplishes all of this on a very limited budget thanks to the efforts of our hard-working volunteers. We are already in the early stages of planning for the 2027 local elections and, of course, for the national election of 2028. We are also considering how best to expand our reach through Southern Arizona in the upcoming election cycles. We believe it is never too early to begin these planning efforts.
We are always welcoming new volunteers to help with this important work. And as a small volunteer organization, we are interested in connecting with individual and organizational funders who share our goals for community engagement.
As we look ahead to the next two years, we will need more volunteers, more funding and more planning. We look forward to this challenge and hope those in the community who value our work and have benefitted from our efforts will reach out to share their support and partnering opportunities.
To learn more about our League, become a member, or support our work, visit lwvsaz.org.
As we at the League of Women Voters always say, “an informed and voting public is the backbone of a true democracy.”
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Linda Maccabe is the president of the LWV of Southern Arizona. Haley Keller is the organization’s communications director and Fran McNeely is a communications committee member.
