Women's Voices Raised For Social Justice

With the Women's Voices Raised For Social Justice April 13th announcement of the newest Lock It for Love partnership, FREE gun locks are now available at all 30 City of St. Louis Fire Department firehouses. Free gun locks are also available at these locations: St. Louis County Library branches of Natural Bridge, Weber Road, Florissant Valley and Lewis & Clark ... St. Louis Public Library branches of Baden, Julia Davis, Divoll and Cabanne Learn more at https://womensvoicesraised.org/lifl-partners #lockitforlove

Join this live event hosted by ArchCity Defenders, Inc. tonight!

Gov. Parson called a special session for today to address the Federal Reimbursement Allowance (FRA). This means that birth control for Missouri Medicaid recipients is under attack. Contact your legislators using the link below to tell them to stop using birth control as a bargaining chip! https://actionnetwork.org//birth-control-is-not-a-bargaini

Ellen Wentz, a Women's Voices board member, writes in the Kansas City Star that we should tell our Senators we want voting to be easy and secure and to vote YES on SB1.

Following the news that several St. Louis children had been injured in unintentional shoorings Cathy Gilbert, co-chair of the Women's Voices Common-Sense Gun Solutions Committee, reminds viewers of KSDK News that gun locks are available at St. Louis fire stations. Unintentional shootings are preventable. #lockitforlove.

Two options for area rides to the polls!

Forget to mail your mail-in ballot last week? There are still 2 ways for you to make your vote count! If you now qualify for one of the reasons for voting absen...tee, you may choose that reason on your absentee envelope and drop it off at the Board of Elections office or a satellite location by 5 p.m. today. If you don’t meet an absentee reason, you may surrender your mail-in ballot at a polling place on Election Day and vote in-person instead. See more

Women's Voices will have Reginald Dwayne Betts as a Visionary Voices speaker, April 22nd. To learn more about Betts, click here to listen to a podcast reading of his article which appeared in the October 22, 2020 New York Times Sunday Magazine. See the comments for informtion about the April virtual program. https://www.nytimes.com//kamala-harris-mass-incarceration.

Dr. LJ Punch who has worked with Women’s Voices on gun violence prevention and Stop the Bleed training sessions has resigned as a St. Louis County Police Commissioner citing the lack of transparency and communication concerning a consultant group working without input from the police departments or board. We admire Punch's work and decision to stand up, speak out, and resign when local officials in those Black majority areas were not told what consultants working for Centene Corp. and other major St. Louis-area companies were doing.

Every eligible voter should have their voice heard and their vote counted. We have to count every ballot that is cast from members of the military who send in their vote from overseas, to people with pre-existing conditions voting absentee because of coronavirus, to people who vote on Election Day. As more people vote by mail this year, it may take a little longer for our local election administrators to count every vote. Additional time is necessary to ensure the rigorous checks and balances that protect the fairness and accuracy of our elections can take place. We might not know the results of the election on November 3rd, and that’s okay. Ensuring every vote counts is more important than hearing early results. When we take the time to count and verify every ballot, it’s a sign that our democracy is working. #CountEveryVote

We all care about the security and integrity of our elections and we’re encouraged by the quick work of election officials to address errors, when and if they arise. Some politicians try to use these errors to make us feel insecure about the election and make us believe that our votes won’t count. We cannot let these efforts affect our confidence in our system or our willingness to vote. We’re all better off when our elections reflect everyone in our community. Your vote matters. Make your voting plan at vote.org to be #VoteReady. If you have questions or need help, call or text 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683).

Women's Voices member Patricia McLafferty writes that the St. Louis-area election boards safeguard the process: We in metro St Louis are fortunate in having our elections overseen by fair and honest bipartisan election authorities fully committed to safeguarding the system of democratic voting. The City Board of Election Commissioners and the County Board of Election Commissioners are both supervised by two directors, one from each of the two major political parties. Republic...an Gary Stoff and Democratic Benjamin Borgmeyer in the city and Republican Rick Stream and Democrat Eric Fey in the county have a history of protecting the vote and counting all the votes. While the coronavirus has seriously complicated the voting process, here in the St. Louis region voters do not have to fear what will happen to our ballots once they are cast. Voters can submit their ballots by mail or in person, before the election or at the polls on Nov. 3, with confidence that their votes matter, and they participated in our electoral process.

If you see disinformation about voting in an online post or ad, do your part to stop the spread. Don't engage, react or comment that only means more people will see it! Do take a screenshot to submit to ReportDisinfo.org. Then share official voting information, to your local election official or Secretary of State. Do your part to keep voters safe from disinformation! Need help voting or need to report a problem? Call or text 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

Barbara Finch, co-founder of Women's Voices, writes about the toll Covid-19 has taken on the lives of older adults.

Women's Voices member Lucy Freeman writes that if the McCloskeys want a pardon they should stand in line: In Parson blames clemency backlog on predecessors while vowing action on gun-waving St. Louis couple (Oct. 14), Gov. Mike Parson’s spokeswoman, Kelli Jones, discussed the backlog of clemency cases and how much time it takes to review each one. She says, Nevertheless, the governor remains committed to giving each application the review and attention they deserve. It is... reported there are 3,500 pending applications for clemency. Among these is the petition of Patricia Prewitt. Prewitt’s application has been pending since 2010. I hope Parson has looked at it and considered all the facts. Her application deserves review and attention. Her application deserves to be considered in a timely manner before it is too late. Have Mark and Patricia McCloskey even applied for a pardon? Since they have not even been convicted, I don’t know if that’s even possible. This speaks of white, rich, political privilege that has no place in the justice system. If they are to be granted a pardon, they should apply for one and get in line after the 3,500 others who are being considered.

Help Protect the Vote by signing up to be a poll monitor. Join Women's Voices Election Protection volunteer training on Monday, October 26, 7 8:30 p.m. Learn more and register in advance for this ZOOM training here: https://womensvoicesraised.org/protect/

Women's Voices member Pamela Gronemeyer writes that complaints about court packing are hypocritical: Regarding the editorial "Packing the court may be a mistake, but the GOP is in no position to judge" (Oct. 19): When I was in grade school, we read John F. Kennedy's book Profiles in Courage. This book told the stories of politicians who had stood strong in the face of opposition to uphold their ideals. Now, all we see in the U.S. Senate are the lives and lies of failed men.... I say men because it appears that the Senate women are true to their words. President Donald Trump cannot wait to pack the U.S. Supreme Court with justices who do not represent the will of the people. Why should an unpopular, unethical president be allowed to do so? Sen. Lindsay Graham said in 2016 that he would not support an eleventh-hour choice. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would not let Judge Merrick Garland even get a hearing. What happened to the three coequal branches of government? We need to fight back and shout no to this hypocrisy. The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg loved the court and pleaded for the future legitimacy of the Supreme Court in her dying words. We should honor her words and reclaim the rights of the majority of the people.

Women's Voices member Ellen Wentz writes that Amendment 3 would overturn the will of the voters. Vote NO on #3.