WE DID IT! After nearly 200,000 people -- including you! -- signed our petitions demanding that a woman moderate a presidential debate for the first time in 20 years, it's been confirmed that CNN’s Candy Crowley will moderate one of the presidential debates on October 16.

This is an amazing win -- a moment that proves that when women speak out, our voices are heard.

We were shocked last spring when we learned in our high school civics class that it had been 20 years since a woman last moderated a presidential debate. We're only 16, which means that no woman has moderated a presidential debate in our lifetimes!

We thought this was unacceptable, and we wanted to do something about it. So we started a petition on Change.org. Nearly 200,000 signatures later, we traveled to Washington, DC to deliver our petition to the Commission on Presidential Debates -- but they refused to meet with us, or even to accept our petitions!

We were so angry that the Commission was ignoring us, and ignoring all of you who signed our petitions. So we doubled down our efforts. We talked about our petition on NPR, CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC, and were featured in The New York Times and USA Today, among others. The Commission may have been afraid to talk to us, but we weren't afraid to tell the world that it was way past time for them to recognize female journalists. We're so excited they came through.

This moment means so much to us, not just because of the part we played in making it happen, but because we think it's so important for little girls all over America to watch the presidential debates and see themselves on the stage of American politics. We want them to look at the television and know that their ideas and questions matter. And to believe that, one day, they could stand on that stage as well.

Thank you so much for making this moment possible. We couldn't have done it without you.

- Emma Axelrod, Sammi Siegel, and Elena Tsemberis