Democracy Forum on WERU FM Community Radio

The League of Women Voters-Downeast in cooperation with WERU FM produces a monthly radio program on topics in participatory democracy. It's called the Democracy Forum.

Broadcasts may be heard live from 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. on the third Friday of the month at WERU Community Radio, 89.9 FM. Listen live on the Web at WERU FM.

In September, 2018, the Democracy Forum won top honors from the Maine Association of Broadcasting for public affairs radio.

Now available as a podcast from WERU FM.

Here is information about our upcoming broadcast.

September 18 -- Who Votes, Who Can't, and Who Won't

This new episode will be pre-recorded on September 16. No listener calls will be taken, but comments may be emailed to news@weru.org with Democracy Forum on the subject line.

“We must protest peacefully, demand persistently, and fight politically. But most of all, we must vote in November.” -- Derrick Johnson, President and CEO of the NAACP

We'll talk about voter participation in marginalized communities: structural/ systemic/ institutional barriers to voting, and motivational barriers to voting. 

In case you missed it live, you can listen to this show from the archive at weru.org.

Special Guests: 

• Maulian Dana, Penobscot Nation Ambassador
• Michael Kebede, Policy Counsel, ACLU of Maine
• Chryl Laird, Assistant Professor of Government, Bowdoin College

Key Topics:

• In Maine, given that our laws are pretty inclusive, what obstacles to voting do people in marginalized communities still face?

• What about the motivational barriers that people face?

• To what extent are people making a rational decision not to vote: calculating correctly that it really doesn’t make much difference on the issues that are acutely important to them?

• Maine does not exist in a bubble democracy. Can we get the public policy we want if other states or the federal government are skewed by voter suppression?

• What special issues arise for indigenous people? Has voting for the tribes been complicated by issues of sovereignty?

• What can citizens do here in Maine?

To learn more, follow these links to related content:

• How Shelby County v. Holder Broke America, Vann R. Newkirk II, The Atlantic, July 2018
• America's Relentless Suppression of Black Voters, Lawrence Goldstone, The New Republic, October 2018.
• Young Black Americans not sold on Biden, the Democrats or voting, David C. Barker and Sam Fulwood III, The Conversation, August 2020
• Systematic Inequality and American Democracy, Danyelle Solomon, Connor Maxwell, and Abril Castro, Center for American Progress, August 2019
• Why So Many Black Voters Are Democrats, Even When They Aren’t Liberal, Cheryl N. Laird, Ismail K. White, FiveThirtyEight, February 2020
• Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior, Cheryl N. Laird, Ismail K. White, February 2020
• Maine: State of our Democracy, a report from the League of Women Voters of Maine, April 2020
• FRRC is one of several nonprofits that are raising money to help returning  citizen pay find and fee in Florida, as mentioned on the show.
• Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Matthew Desmond, 2016

Read about and listen to past programs from the League archive.

Recent Topics in this Series