Being educated during the election season is important, and The League of Women Voters is holding a candidate forum to help out.
Spokesperson Cathy Hedge says that the League stays completely neutral and just works on providing a way for the public to hear the ideas of the candidates. Hedge tells KMAN more about the format of the event.
“We ask an issue based question on things we believe our community wants to know, and then each candidate answers that question in turn. It’s different from a debate where there’s not the back-and-forth,” says Hedge.
Hedge tells KMAN that the League has been involved with elections for several years. She mentions the main goal of the organization.
“We want our participation in government to be informed and active, and so the things that we focus on is policy issues. We are completely non-partisan, we don’t ever endorse a certain candidate or a party, but we are very active in certain issues that we believe will help us all,” she says.
Hedge says that the LWV gives an opportunity for the community to learn more about the local candidates whose positions are very important.
“People want to know what is happening at the local level as well as the national because it has a huge impact which is something we have really seen. As you have mentioned in this time of COVID what our local people, our local leaders, decide to do has a huge impact on our everyday lives,” says Hedge.
This year’s event will be virtual via zoom, but will still offer a lot of great information. Hedge says although it is virtual this year, it is still important to gather questions from the audience. She explains how to submit questions for the candidates.
“We’ve had the people who are there at the place would send us questions, put them in on cards, and we’d get them to the moderator, but what’s going to be instead this time, just asking people to send us questions either through Facebook or our email address which is LWV.manhattankansas@gmail.com,” she says.
Marisa Larson will moderate the virtual debate with candidates from the Riley County Commission race participating, along with candidates from Kansas House Districts 51, 64, 66 and 67 and Kansas Senate District 22.
The candidate forum will take place at 2 p.m. Sunday and will be carried live on KMAN and NewsRadioKMAN.com. It will also be streamed via the League’s Facebook Live feed.
