Flint, MI—The Flint Area League of Women Voters has opened a Voter Outreach Center in north Flint to identify the reasons for low voter turnout in the city and develop voter education in response.
The outreach center is located in the Flint Development Center at 4121 Martin Luther King Ave. and is open from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.
According to the League’s press release, services at the center include “informal answering of questions about voting on a walk-in or call-in basis,” as well as workshops, focus groups, and events.
“Anybody who has a question about voting, or wants to participate in our workshops, we are just thrilled to have them,” said Pegge Adams, LWV Flint Area’s president. “We’re learning as we go in terms of who is interested.”
Adams said she was fired up about voter turnout after 2021’s Flint City Council election, wherein all wards except for the seventh had roughly 10% or less of registered voters cast ballots.
“I started to dream about what we could do to increase (voter turnout) … because the turnout was so poor,” she said. So, when she heard that the Ruth Mott Foundation was looking for a voting-related program to support with grant money, Adams knew her organization could help.
The League has two main objectives in opening up the center.
The first is to engage with residents to determine reasons for low voter turnout in Flint—particularly in the focus area of north Flint, or ZIP codes 48504 and 48505.
The second is to develop voter education to respond to the needs of the area and the community’s feedback.
But Adams further simplified her organization’s hopes for the center.
“Our goals are to activate the public to claim their right to vote and to fully embrace democracy,” she said. “That’s kind of the League of Women Voters’ mission: always has been, always will be.”
The Voter Outreach Center will be hosting its next event, “Voting: Start to Finish” on Friday, April 29 from 2 to 3:30 p.m. and again from 4:30 to 6 p.m. The event features Inez Brown, Flint City Clerk, and will walk through the voting process from eligibility and how to vote absentee down election audits, certification, and the role of the Board of Canvassers.
Interested residents can call 810-766-9772 to sign-up for one of the “Voting: Start to Finish” sessions or to get further information on the League’s new north Flint voter outreach center, which has funding through the end of 2022.