Brookfield League of Women Voters Chapter Disbands

Following a trend throughout of the state of dwindling membership, the Brookfield chapter of the League of Women Voters has become inactive as members have moved away or pulled back in their involvement.

Local League members no longer meet or organize voter information or registration drives, though the chapter has yet to officially close while the state organization looks to find more members.

“We had a big membership but only a few active members,” chapter treasurer and former president Elaine Tomanio said, stating that a number of those key active members have moved away over the last year.

Tomanio said she isn’t sure why interest in the League waned over the years but suggested that people have moved on to other things.

That is a question being asked throughout the ranks of the League, according to state co-president Judy Dolphin, and many are coming to a similar conclusion.

The trend has been “fewer numbers of leagues and fewer numbers of members,” she said, though most local chapters merge rather than disbanding altogether.

As of September, there are currently 27 chapters operating in Connecticut, down from 28 after the Danbury/Bethel chapter officially disbanded at the end of June.

(Brookfield was originally part of a tri-town Brookfield/Bethel/Danbury chapter before breaking off on its own.)

“The reason the League was organized was not only to get people out to vote but to have informed voters,” Dolphin said, which includes reaching consensus opinions on important issues and advocating for those stances.

Advocacy was a big draw for the League when it was first established, however it might be the reason it’s shrinking now.

“Back when many of us joined the League it was the only place to be activists and speak our minds,” she said. “Over the years, as women got out of the home more they started to find issues and organizations specific to things close to them. Rather than go to an organization that is so broad, they chose to focus their time and efforts on things near and dear to their hearts.”

The positions taken by the activism wing of the League and the fact that the Brookfield chapter’s Board of Directors was made up entirely of registered Democrats toward the end, some have suggested that partisanism might have lead to flagging support.

“I never felt that,” Tomanio said of the local League membership. “It was just a matter of who joined up, not what party they were with.”

“Leagues don’t disband because of the perceived political leanings,” said Jean Rabinow, a member of the Bridgeport Area League of Women Voters and the state Board of Directors. “They run out of people who are willing to run them.”