The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to educating voters to give them the opportunity to make informed decisions during elections. The LWV was founded in February of 1920, not long before women obtained the right to vote in the US by members of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Kalamazoo’s League of Women Voters was founded just five months afterwards in July. The 19th amendment was ratified the next month... in August of 1920. After campaigning for the establishment of the UN, the LWV was recognized as one of the first non-governmental organizations by the UN around 1945. With the return of televised presidential debates in 1976, the LWV received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Broadcasting Journalism for their sponsorship of the debate. The LWV also sponsored presidential debates in 1980 and 1984, but withdrew their sponsorship in 1988, citing demands for increasingly partisan conditions. The League of Women Voters continued to advocate for voter and election reform, including support of the National Voter Registration Act in 1993 and the Help America Vote Act in 2002. The LWV continues to operate today, including their funding of Vote 411, a website similarly dedicated to providing election and voter information.