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>> There are a number of seasons going on right now.

The calendar tells us that this is the season of spring.

We're also at the beginning of the baseball season, the closing days of the tax season and the arrival of our country's primary election season and for us in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan May 3rd is the date circled on the calendar that's primary election day and that's just over three weeks from now.

>> Well, there are many more primary elections that are of course scheduled for this year as all the House of Representatives and dozens of U.S. Senate and gubernatorial seats are up for grabs in November Will happily a Web site developed by the League of Women Voters is providing nonpartisan information on everything from polling locations to background on the candidates and the issues in the races ahead.

And we'll learn more about the Web site vote for one one dot org this week's Prime Time.

And good evening.

I'm Bruce Haines.

Our guests are Gayle Sorensen, a local attorney and co president of the League of Women Voters of Fort Wayne and with her is Marsha Edmond, a retired high school guidance counselor and educator but very active in her work regarding voter education, redistricting at candidate forums and all of that with the league and Marsha Gaila.

>> Welcome to you both.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for having us.

We appreciate it.

>> The May primary is three weeks away.

It's hard to believe and it is such an important part of the whole election cycle this year and we're very excited to be out there helping people get ready for that important day.

>> It seems that of course with election season, be it primary or general, the candidates have a strategy of how best to use that time.

And you can imagine where I'm going now is to just simply say as voters it almost seems like we too might want a strategy of how to prepare ourselves for the primary election for the general election that I guess that's where vote for one one dog comes in.

>> Yes, we are.

Our goal is to educate the voters and to give them information about the candidates that they may not hear doing commercials that the candidate has are even going to that candidate's website.

We have information that you can find on vote 411 dog that you may not find other places.

One of the ways that we like to think about this is what's coming up is you are taking the first step in hiring someone to do a job for you.

And so just like you would do if you were screening candidates for a position that you were going to hire them for , you want to be prepared ahead of time.

You don't want to wait till the night before and start trying to figure out who's who or what they stand for .

So we really encourage voters to get out there, do their research.

So you're an informed, empowered voter so that your vote really reflects what's important to you and what your values are and that takes doing some research and some background work and vote for one.

One is such an easy intuitive way to get at that information.

>> It really seems to that in the history of the league that voter education has been a cornerstone for the work that's that's been done.

I mean you go back to even the 1920 moments after the the amendment was conferred for women being given the right to vote, the immediate next step was all about voter education and about legislation to not just empower women but all Americans.

And so this is not a new idea but the technology of doing that education is certainly new.

>> Absolutely.

And also the other thing too is unfortunately I think too too many of us go to the ballot, we cast our votes and we know nothing about the candidate we vote using the straight ticket option just because it's a particular political party as opposed to voting because this candidate UT's stance on issues that are important to me and to you he exemplifies he she exemplifies so it's very important to be informed and that's what we're trying to impress upon our community that it really does make a difference and we're hoping that with more informed voters we can increase the number of people who come out to vote in our primary elections.

Our percentage has not been very high in the past and hopefully becoming informed about candidates.

Their stance on issues will encourage voters to go out and participate.

>> You know, as you talked about the history of you know, a hundred years of of helping voters be informed and I think it's kind of fascinating.

I mean there was a time when you actually knew everybody who was running for an office in your particular area and getting information.

There was a limited amount of information that was available to you and now we live in a time in a society where a lot of times we've never personally met the person running for office and I think sometimes the one of the challenges is there's too much information instead of not being able to get, you know, any information about someone.

But that's where I think vote for would want to accomplish is to really critical things.

So one is that the information you get is about the races that you're going to vote on so you can get specific information about those candidates.

And the other thing is that that information is customized to the position and the power they're going to have.

So it's a really specialized information about that particular position so that you can sift through all the other messaging, all the other platform, you know, generalized messages that they may have and get to the specifics of that race and that particular position and Marcia, to your point, I think one of the things that becomes intimidating for a lot of folks is what that ballot looks like when you get to the polls.

You know, and it's the first time you've ever seen the layout or know what the questions are.

How many people are running for the three seats?

>> Do I need to pay or do I have to do and for one one addresses that as well.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

We try to prepare voters for Election Day and that's extremely important and especially we're in the process of preparing for a primary and for the primary the primary for our politicians.

>> It's the beginning of their political career.

So this is the first opportunity that voters have to actually screen and interview them asking eluded to.

>> So yes, extremely important and the information that is shared on the site is information they provide to you if I understand that right?

>> Yes.

That's what's what's that's one of the really great things about Vote for Love and Dog is that the cat all of the candidates were invited to respond to questions.

All of them were given the same question and we published unedited responses from each candidate and with about four eleven dog you can actually compare candidates so that you can see side by side what their responses were and make a better decision at the polls.

>> Yeah, we are going to take a tour if you will of the website and this with video that was prepared to advance we can be sure to hit the high points and Gaila I believe your your and you both will be our co tour guides but why do we pretend like we have mouse in hand we've gone through our search engine and we have found for one one vote for eleven dog ticket from there.

OK and thanks Bruce that is the first thing it's a very easy you are able to remember as you just have your vote for one one dog and one thing that's on the front is you can learn about there's a checklist for first time voters.

There's also information if you run into trouble at the polls.

But as we mentioned, the customization aspect of this is one of the most powerful aspects.

So you enter your address and we just chose an address in a Boit for illustration.

Enter your address and submit that and the system is going to create a customized ballot just for you based on your voting location.

So once you submit that it's going to come up and because we have open primaries in Indiana you'll be asked to select which party's primary you're going to be voting in if you haven't decided yet you can look at both sides of that but you'll choose your party and for again illustration purposes we're going to look at the Republican ballot so you put in your party it will show you that the language that you're going to have it in is English and I will see that in a boy I'm going to have 14 different races on my ballot.

You can go into any one of these races.

We're going to pick the ABC board race and you pull that up and you will see all the candidates who are going to be in that race and which ones have responded to our questionnaire.

We did invite all of them in contested races.

When you select that candidate it will go down.

You'll get some biographical information and then you'll see their responses to customized questions that are about how that position actually has influence in our lives.

Then if you want to look at another candidate, it's an easy click the mouse and you can see that candidate and you can compare their answer side by side so easily to help you make decisions based on what is important to you.

Then if you want to look at other races it's a simple click up at the top and you can toggle back and forth between the different races that again are the ones on your ballot, the ones that you are specifically going to be voting for and start that process over again of showing you which ones are on that ballot for you to choose between the nominal and others felt phenomenal even before we said anything about it because just within the past year the vote for Eleven Big Side won the nonprofit communications campaign of the year from PR Daily also recognized for the best marketing campaign best visual storytelling.

A number of tele awards were given to the league for all of this work and it's no surprise that more than six million individuals across the country avail themselves of the site in twenty .

>> Congratulations.

Well, you know, one of the things that I'm so proud about the league is that it's such a very small group of people have had such a huge impact in terms of voter education and attracting people to our to our site and asking questions and joining us.

>> And I'm also wondering too if the move to online starting officially in 2006 but now being rebooted retool this all sites are and taking the tack you've just seen what are the hopes for the league in having this be an outreach to younger voters that is definitely one of our key areas of focus.

It is so important that our rising generation that we have them engaged and that they recognize that democracy is still a thriving form of government that needs their participation.

And so by making this where you can look at it on your phone, your other devices, easy access that's a great way that we have outreach the other way that the outreach is I think very powerful with the online mechanisms.

You think about people who are voting absentee people who are on the road, people who may be in the military or for other reasons or out of the country during the the pre-election time period and this lets them still be connected to their home base.

It lets them be informed voters and it that's another really important segment of our our voters that we want to make sure can get the information I need.

>> We make sure that this information is available through all forms of social media and that is certainly an area where young adults are really very connected to them.

>> And for those of us who are young at heart, there are also areas on that website that will be of interest to us like where did they move my polling place?

Absolutely.

I understand that's one of the more popular sites and since we don't always commit that to memory that that many of us will will probably be clicking over to see if it's still at the corner down the street next to the tree, you know, and be sure it works and we we do want that is one of the things that we really want to emphasize is the importance of checking your voting status in terms of of the address and the personal information that has to be included in the process.

So it is it's very important to check that prior to Election Day.

The other thing and this applies to our younger voters but to everyone as well in terms making sure you get out there and vote is we have information about early polling locations.

In fact, early voting is already open.

You can do that at the clerk's office already and then there's other locations that will be available in the weeks preceding the election.

And so if you go to the League of Women Voters website, you can find all of those different early voting polling locations as well.

>> The it is as you were saying earlier, a great opportunity to verify that you are indeed registered to vote.

>> So you are not surprised and also then come with the appropriate documentation when the when the time comes.

>> Yes, yes.

There are a number of voters who do come to the polls who are at the wrong location.

So that is a that's that's a very common problem that is easily rectified though at the voting site and if your computer is nearby and someone to guide you to again we're talking vote for one one she if you've just joined us a wonderful website, nonpartisan trusted information from the League of Women Voters there it is in two flavors.

One is the league of Women Voters Fort Wayne dog site and right below it is indeed your search engine would get you there vote for one one dog and then go to the mat, click on Indiana and you can go from there.

James has called in with an off line question for us and it goes like this What feedback have you received perhaps from candidates and voters about the website?

So one aspect of feedback that we've gotten from candidates is especially those who are in races that perhaps are less covered by the the the media because they're more localized and also for candidates that may not have the bigger budgets and that they love having our forum as a way that they can get their message out to the voters that they can can share that message in an unedited way.

And so the accessibility of it and the fact that we do all of the races every every local races included is something that we get positive feedback about from our from our candidates and then the voter feedback I since I didn't have anything to do with actually creating the the the underlying technology or anything, I think I can brag a little bit but that it's so intuitive and it is so easy to go in, find your races, be able to compare and so we get extremely positive feedback from the voters that actually use this as many of them that talk to us .

>> It's their primary source of information about the candidates.

It saves them a lot of time because they don't have to go to numerous sites to get information about all the candidates.

So and we are all very overloaded with responsibilities and if we can cut back on the amount of time that it takes to get the information that we want, that is very beneficial.

>> Yeah, if you have just joined us, we're going to review the website for you one more time so you can again write the site down, take your own private tour.

But Gail, let's go to our computer and we'll call a vote 411 Doug and we'll start where the home page happy home page and across the top there and you can check your voter registration.

>> You can register to vote if you are and you can scroll down.

As I mentioned, there's a checklist for first time voters things like ID and those kinds of requirements don't catch you by surprise and there's a great resource if you get caught Election Day with some questions but customizing your ballot we can't emphasize enough that you need to know which races are going to be affecting you.

And so that's as simple as putting in your home address and then the system does the work of pulling together the different races that are going to affect you individually and that you're going to see on the ballot when you go to to vote whether that's early voting, absentee voting or on Election Day choosing your party again for the primaries.

It's an open primary.

Choosing your party will let you see those two those races we're choosing Republican just for the purposes of illustration and then the language will pick automatically default to English.

We would love it when we have the resources to have it in other languages.

But for now English is your choice then the races and it is so exciting to look at these and see the different races that you're going to have an opportunity to have to say and and to help promote the the candidates in all these different races a Boit is the one we chose.

We can look and see all the different candidates that are running and then you can choose you can see a description of what the position actually is which is very helpful for some of us that aren't as familiar then the biographical information and most critically the answers to the questions and the questions are different for each race because they're customized to that position and then to click and compare this is my favorite feature of the entire system because I love being able to side by side get their different perspectives on the questions and that is so helpful to me in making decisions about who I'm going to vote for then I love the way that you can scroll through, you can pick your different races and just going up to the top you can click back and forth to see what the candidates are for those different races and that information can can easily be be found by doing that.

One of the things we do want to highlight too we have the information there now for the primaries but for the general election you're going to get fresh information and of course at that point we'll know who's won the primaries and what the races are for the general election.

>> So this is a tool that's going to be helpful all year long and excuse me even if a person is not eligible for the primary, they can still look for being registered for the general election.

>> I think that that situation is like the eleventh or so of October.

>> So something like along that line.

Yes.

Moving through for that.

But something I want to be sure that we come back to you.

You said a moment ago, Marshall, which is voter age education, increasing voter participation.

>> Yes.

And I would think whether you're twenty twenty seem to show high interest in primary and general elections for the first time in decades.

>> Yes, but to to build on that momentum with a tool that is nonpartisan, that is candidate information fed the way it is it's set up and so forth.

>> Let me ask you both but I'll start with you your your hope for this as being the barrier breaker to make voting easier and to make it more effective.

>> Yes, we that is our goal.

>> Our goal is to increase the number of people who come out to vote and and in addition to that with some of the other things that we're involved with, we also do what we can to advocate legislation that supports voter rights and protection and we also take a very active stance and with our advocacy and voicing our opinion against and that in support of legislation that just does the opposite of suppressing voter rights and protection.

>> So we're very busy and getting back to another point we made about connecting with young people we are often out in the community sharing information about what we've been talking about tonight and also helping young people to go through the process of registering to vote a big first step and a big first step.

>> Many of us who don't exercise as much as we used to either we should be getting out and also participating.

What are your aspirations with vote for one one dog?

>> So what am I I think one of our greatest aspirations is that it will be a stepping stone for people to realize that they are a critical part of democracy and that as they just take if they'll just take that first step and take the time to start reading about these candidates, all of a sudden you start caring about the issues and about these you see well this person really reflects what's important to me and so you have this desire to get engaged and I think it's so important to to have that personal connection to realize that yes, I can do something, my vote does matter and as you get in and you get this personalized customized information that's in the candidate's own voice, you start feeling that connection to them and what they what they stand for and you want to be a part of helping them get their their message and their their ideas across.

>> We hope that you'll have an opportunity to visit.

We have a number of places for you to either click or call for contact information locally there is the phone number.

There is an email address but there's more here is website information.

This is of League of Women Voters Fort Wayne Dog, the home site to the local agency wanted to share that and then the all important vote for eleven dog vote for one one dog by any other name it will improve your learning curve going into the May primary again three weeks away we all have homework and you've helped set us up beautifully.

Thank you Marcia Mingalar Sorenson.

I'm Bruce Haines for all of us with prime time take care.

Thanks for watching.

We'll see you again.

Thank you.

Thank you for that evening.

>> Good giving