LWV Newton Calendar

The Wellesley League’s opening meeting will feature Barbara Bluestein Simons, a voting cyber security expert, speaking on “Election Security: Threats and Solutions.” The meeting will take place on Tuesday evening, October 16, in the Wakelin Room of the Wellesley Free Library, 530 Washington Street (Route 16), just off Wellesley Square. Light refreshments will be served at 6:30 pm and the lecture will begin promptly at 7:00 pm. League members, friends and guests are welcome to attend.

Barbara Simons has been on the Board of Advisors of the US Election Assistance Commission since she was appointed by Senator Reid in 2008. She co-authored the report that led to the cancellation of the Department of Defense’s Internet Voting Project (SERVE) in 2004 because of security concerns. Simons is retired from IBM Research; previously she was President of the Association for Computing Machinery for computing professionals. She is the only women to have received the Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award from the College of Engineering at U C Berkley where she earned her PhD in computer science. Simons currently serves as chair of Verified Voting (https://www.verifiedvoting.org/), a non-partisan non-profit organization that advocates for legislation and regulation that promotes accuracy, transparency and verifiability of elections.

Links to two recent articles about Barbara Bluestein Simons are listed below:

Wellesley College Magazine: http://magazine.wellesley.edu/summer-2018/make-every-vote-count

The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/12/guardian-of-the-vote/544155/

What are all the November ballot questions about? Come learn with LWVN!

It’s almost time to decide how you’ll vote on the upcoming state and local ballot questions in November. This year there are three state ballot questions, and two local ballot questions. If you still don’t know what the ballot questions are about, or don’t have the facts you need to vote, we can help.

Join members of the League of Women Voters of Newton (LWVN) on Thursday, October 18th from 8:00 am – 9:30 am at the Durant-Kenrick House (286 Waverley Ave, Newton) as we hear from presenters on both sides of the issues for state ballot Question 1 regarding patient-to-nurse limits and the Newton ballot questions regarding the dispensation of marijuana. Attendees will have an opportunity to ask presenters from each side questions at the end of each presentation. RSVPs to info@lwvnewton.org are appreciated!

Can’t join us on the 18th? Our program on state ballot Question 1 will be taped soon and shown in late October. For a discussion of state ballot Questions 2 and 3, watch the latest episode of ‘The League Presents’ on NewTV with guest Holly Gunner and LWVN Vice-President Lisa Mirabile. The link to the program is: https://newtv.org/recent-videos-community/120-the-league-presents/5302-ballot-questions-2-and-3.