About Us
The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization working to protect and expand voting rights and ensure everyone is represented in our democracy.
We empower voters and defend democracy through advocacy, education, and litigation, at the local, state, and national levels.
Our History
The League of Women Voters was founded as a successor organization to the National American Woman Suffrage Association by Carrie Chapman Catt in 1920, just six months before the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, giving all American women the right to vote after a 72-year fight for women’s suffrage.
The League’s goals were twofold: to prepare women to be informed voting citizens, and to promote the social legislation characteristic of domestic politics such as advocating for better working conditions for women, child labor legislation, and prison reform. Catt was anxious to avoid women from being identified as a special interest group. Instead, her philosophy was that by having the vote, women’s involvement in politics would make for a naturally feminized and more humane state.
Catt spoke at the Conference of Women Voters held in the Salt Lake Tabernacle 17 November 1919, which was sponsored by the Utah State Suffrage Council (then presided over by Utah feminists Emmeline B. Wells, Emily S. Richards, among others). Three years later, 18 women gathered in the Ladies Parlor of the Hotel Utah for the first regular meeting of the Utah League of Women Voters. Leah Dunham Widtsoe (wife of LDS Church Apostle John A. Widtsoe), was elected as State Chairman, and each member paid $1 in dues.
Voting History
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Our Commitment
There shall be no barriers to full participation in this organization on the basis of gender, gender identity, ethnicity, race, native or indigenous origin, age, generation, sexual orientation, culture, religion, belief system, marital status, parental status, socioeconomic status, language, accent, ability status, mental health, educational level or background, geography, nationality, work style, work experience, job role function, thinking style, personality type, physical appearance, political perspective or affiliation and/or any other characteristic that can be identified as recognizing or illustrating diversity.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are central to the organization’s current and future success in engaging all individuals, households, communities, and policy makers in creating a more perfect democracy.