The League of Women Voters of Rhode Island is providing a fantastic public service throughout the month leading up to Election Day. League volunteers, led by a group more robust and active than we have seen in many years, are organizing, promoting and overseeing more than a dozen public candidates forum throughout the East Bay.

They have held forums in East Providence, Portsmouth, Barrington, Middletown and Newport. They held a forum Tuesday night for General Assembly candidates on the campus of Roger Williams University. There are upcoming forums in Warren and Tiverton, with candidates for multiple races expected to appear, face to face, to discuss the issues of the day.

Many elections ago, we began partnering with the League to moderate and host these forums. In the beginning, League volunteers were a very small, spirited group who did yeoman’s work over the course of many weeks to secure the venues, write the rules and get the candidates to show up.

These days, the League has a deep team of volunteers. At recent forums, they have had eight, ten or more volunteers, all working hard, all committed to the cause. And that cause is clear — providing non-partisan, non-biased, genuine public service.

People who will soon assume enormous power and influence are seeking office, and too few voters know who they are, what they believe in, and what impact they could have on their lives in the future. The League is doing what it can to change that.

After holding candidate forums in small settings with no audience during the Covid years, the League is back to hosting public forums in large settings with big audiences. They are live-streaming and/or recording the events, and they are posting them to their website at www.lwvri.org.

In some corners (Little Compton, for instance), they’ve met with resistance from candidates who fear programs will be biased toward one party over another. As anyone who has watched one of the forums can attest, this is an irrational fear. League rules demand equal time for all candidates, and questions are vetted to be as neutral, objective and non-partisan as possible.

If you’ve missed the forums, check them out online. If you’re free one night, stop by and watch your candidates in person.

The many volunteers of the League of Women Voters are providing a wonderful service, and they deserve a standing ovation for every time they’ve brought our candidates for office into the light of public scrutiny.