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Andrew Aydin
Andrew is co-author of the New York Times best-selling graphic memoir trilogy, MARCH -- with Rep. John Lewis, illustrated by Nate Powell, and published by Top Shelf Productions. Andrew is a recipient of the 2014 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award Special Recognition and the 2014 Coretta Scott King Book Award Author Honor. He has been nominated for two Eisner awards and two Harvey awards, among other honors.
An Atlanta native, Andrew currently serves as Digital Director & Policy Advisor to Rep. John Lewis in Washington, DC. Following his master’s thesis on the history and impact of the 1950s comic book Martin Luther King & The Montgomery Story, Andrew continues to publish and lecture about the history of comics in the civil rights movement. Andrew served as communications director and press secretary during Rep. Lewis' 2008 and 2010 re-election campaigns. Prior to joining Rep. Lewis' staff, Andrew served as district aide to Rep. John Larson (D-CT), and as special assistant to Connecticut Lt. Governor Kevin Sullivan. Andrew is a graduate of Lovett, Trinity College in Hartford, and Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
Gary Bartlett
Gary Bartlett was the Executive Director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections from 1993 to 2013 where he supervised over 150 staff and provided oversight to 750 county board members and staff as well as 25,000 election officials. As Executive Director, he also managed nearly $100 million in budgets and federal grants. Before joining the State Board of Elections, Mr. Bartlett was a Legislative Assistant to former Congressman H. Martin Lancaster. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Johanna Berkson
Johanna Berkson is President of OurTime.org, a nationwide non-profit organization that empowers and speaks for the interests of young Americans. With a membership of more than 1,500,000, OurTime organizes campaigns that register and educate voters, advocate for economic opportunity, and convert political news into relevant language, short explanation videos, and shareable memes. Johanna’s mission is to take the enthusiasm of the 46 million young Americans of voting age and increase their daily engagement in our political process and most importantly to register and vote in all elections.
Prior to joining Our Time Johanna spent the majority of her career campaigning for congressional candidates and working on Capitol Hill as a staff member for Congressman Chris Van Hollen (MD). Johanna completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland, College Park in 2001 and received an Executive MBA in leadership from Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business in 2007.
Deborah Berry
Deborah Barfield Berry is a correspondent in the Washington bureau of USA TODAY, focusing on the Louisiana and Mississippi beats. She also writes about civil rights and voting rights issues for the bureau as well as for Gannett’s national online project, “Civil Rights in America: Connections to a Movement.” Before joining Gannett in 2005, Berry worked for Newsday, a New York newspaper, and Knight-Ridder News Service covering a range of issues from health care to social policies and congressional and presidential elections.
Berry has won several awards for her work, including one for a national project on the plight of the black elderly, another for a special a tab on civil liberties in the aftermath of Sept. 11 and a series on the disproportionate number of minorities placed in special education. She was also part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of TWA Flight 800. Berry, a native of Brooklyn, New York, is a graduate of the University of Maryland’s College of Journalism at College Park.
Robert Blaemire
Robert Blaemire is Director of Business Development at Catalist. He has been an active participant in politics all of his adult life. His career began at the age of 18 upon entering George Washington University, joining the staff of Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN) in 1967 and concluded with Bayh's unsuccessful re-election campaign in 1980 against Dan Quayle. Those 13 years saw Bob rise from volunteer worker to Office Manager to Executive Assistant in the Senate Office, finally Political Director of the 1980 campaign.
After the 1980 defeat, he founded a political action commit¬tee, The Committee for American Principles, an organization seeking to combat the growing role and influence of the New Right in political campaigns.
He began his career providing political computer services in 1982, eventually creating Blaemire Communications, a political computer services firm serving Democratic campaigns, progressive organizations and political consultants. During that time, Blaemire Communications managed more Democratic state party voter file projects than any other vendor. In late 2007, Blaemire Communications was acquired by Catalist. Bob completed his B.A. in Political Science and his M.A. in Legislative Affairs at GWU.
Matt Boehmer
Mr. Matt Boehmer is the Director of the Department of Defense’s Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP). In his capacity as the Director, Mr. Boehmer administers the Federal responsibilities of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) for the Secretary of Defense. The Act covers the voting rights of Uniformed Services personnel, their eligible family members and all U.S. citizens residing outside the United States.
FVAP works to ensure UOCAVA citizens are aware of their right to vote and have the tools and resources to successfully do so—from anywhere in the world.
Nancy Bordier
Nancy Bordier, founder and CEO of Re-Invent Democracy, Inc., is a political scientist (M.A. and Ph.D., Columbia University), holder of two U.S. patents, web entrepreneur, former electoral candidate and university professor. She was an award-winning member of the launch team of the $1 billion pioneering social network, Prodigy Interactive Personal Service, founded by a partnership of IBM, CBS and Sears. Dr. Bordier invented the Interactive Voter Choice System, which enables voters to insert a new layer of voter-controlled voting blocs, political parties, and electoral coalitions into electoral and legislative processes. She also invented the System for Playing An Interactive Voter Choice Game, a multi-party game of electoral strategy that enables players to learn how to build winning voting blocs and electoral coalitions.
Vanessa Cárdenas
Vanessa Cárdenas is the Vice President of Progress 2050 at American Progress. Her work focuses on the intersection of policy and race with particular attention to demographic changes, immigration, and issues relevant to the growing Latino community in the United States. Progress 2050 develops new ideas for an increasingly diverse America, examines the implications of demographic shifts, and focuses on promoting policies to ensure a more equitable economy that works for all. Vanessa holds a B.A. in government and politics and a master’s in public administration, both from George Mason University. She is a 2010 fellow of the National Hispana Leadership Institute and alum of Leadership Arlington and the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia.
Rachna Choudhry
Rachna is Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of POPVOX. She is responsible for outreach to advocacy organizations and trade associations, marketing to individual users and assists with outreach to Congressional staff. She is based in Washington, DC. Rachna has a background in federal lobbying, issue advocacy and social media strategy for a variety of national issue-based and advocacy organizations.
Rachna holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from UCLA, and a Master’s in Public Policy from Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. She is based in Washington, DC and hails from the San Francisco Bay Area. She was listed as #6 on the 2014 list of “Digital Citizens of the Year.”
Edgardo Cortés
Edgardo Cortés is the Virginia Commissioner of Elections. Cortés has worked in elections for more than a decade, with experience in all facets of the electoral process including campaigns, non-partisan voter registration, federal election policy, and local and state election administration. He was appointed as Virginia’s first Commissioner of Elections on July 1, 2014, by Governor McAuliffe. In that role, he serves as agency head for the Virginia Department of Elections and as chief state election official for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Cortés served as the Deputy Secretary for the Virginia State Board of Elections (SBE) starting in February 2014.
Cortés worked for the SBE in the lead up to the 2012 elections and was responsible for updating the state’s Help America Vote Act State Plan and Voting System Certification program. He has also served as the former General Registrar of Fairfax County, VA, on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), as director of a national non-partisan voter registration program, and on Congressional field campaigns.
Claire Daviss
Claire Daviss is a research fellow at FairVote. She graduated in 2014 from Yale University with a B.A. in Ethics, Politics, and Economics. While at Yale, she focused her studies on urban poverty, inequality, and political participation. Her senior thesis, titled “Public and Private Funding and the Political Activity of Community-based Organizations,” expanded upon current research on the political participation of individuals living in low-income communities. Claire has previously worked as an intern at MALDEF in San Antonio, TX, and at Junta for Progressive Action, Inc.
Marguerite Dibble
Marguerite Dibble is the CEO and founder of GameTheory, an award-winning ideas and development studio that focuses on building a future of natural engagement rather than demanding interaction. GameTheory works on a variety of projects, from designing incentive programs for sustainability to creating healthcare applications and producing mobile games. Through her work at GameTheory Marguerite aims to provide mechanisms and tools to change behavior, building solutions that focus on fun and enjoyment to create the changes in action that are needed to change to world.
Jim Dickson
Jim Dickson has 30 years of experience with nonpartisan voter engagement issues and is currently serving as a Co-Chair of the National Council of Independent Living Voting Rights Task Force.
Jim recently finished stint as Vice President for Organizing and Civic Engagement for The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), where he led the Disability Vote Project, a broad coalition working to close the political participation gap for people with disabilities. Mr. Dickson played a central role in the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights’ work to pass the Help America Vote Act and was part of the leadership team that passed the National Voter Registration Act. He also served as Chair of the Board of Advisors to the United States Election Assistance Commission.
Mr. Dickson is a graduate of Brown University.
Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat
Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat heads the nonpartisan, nonprofit, public services organization, U.S. and Overseas Vote Foundation. As an early innovator in the nonprofit voter engagement space, Susan launched the first publicly available, online voter registration tool for overseas and military voters, a success that has since blossomed into a vibrant organization and become a force of change for domestic, overseas and military voters.
Susan’s keen interest is civic engagement with voting as a central action. She continues to pursue the development of innovative online solutions that improve the voting process for all types of voters across all states and territories. Her current objective is to expand and develop a new concept of personalized civic engagement. With recent grants from the Democracy Fund, the foundation has integrated the award-winning FactCheck.org database of articles into their My Voter Account application and embarked on a major research project in the arena of End-to-End, Verifiable Internet Voting.
Keith Ellison
Rep. Ellison has represented the Fifth Congressional District of Minnesota in the U.S. House of Representatives since taking office on January 4, 2007. The Fifth Congressional District is the most vibrant and ethnically diverse district in Minnesota with a rich history and traditions. The Fifth District includes the City of Minneapolis and the surrounding suburbs.
Rep. Ellison's philosophy is one of "generosity and inclusiveness." His roots as a community activist and his message of inclusivity through democratic participation resonate throughout the Fifth District. His priorities in Congress are: promoting peace, prosperity for working families, environmental sustainability, and civil and human rights.
Valerie Ervin
Valerie Ervin is Executive Director of the Center for Working Families, which engages in policy development, research and public education. She served on the Montgomery County Council from 2006 to 2014, including as its president in 2011. Ervin has received many awards for her public service including: Montgomery County Commission for Women’s Historical Archives Inductee in 2014; Washingtonian Magazine’s Most Powerful Women Award in 2011; Maryland’s Top 100 Women from the Daily Record in 2008 and 2012; Phyliss Campbell Newsome Public Policy Leadership Award from the Center for Non-Profit Advancement in 2008; John Greeley Award from Liberty’s Promise in 2008; and the Phenomenal Woman of the Year Award from Community Bridges in 2007. She holds a master's degree in public administration from the University of Baltimore.
Augusta Featherston
Augusta Featherston has ten years of experience designing, implementing and delivering youth programs focused on literacy, technology and leadership development. At the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, Featherston serves as the organization’s technical lead on youth engagement advising on youth-specific program design and other global youth initiatives.
Prior to joining IFES, she worked with various youth-focused non-profit organizations to support young people in underserved communities in Denver, Colorado. Her portfolio included projects serving young people of all ages, from elementary school through university-age students, incorporating both school-based and informal programming components.
Featherston holds a bachelor’s degree in international affairs from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a master’s degree in international development from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.
Joe Firestone
Joseph M. Firestone, co-founder of Re-Invent Democracy, Inc., is a technologist, political scientist (M.A. and Ph.D., Michigan State University), organizational theorist and author of more than 500 books, articles, research papers, reports, and blog posts in in the fields of information technology, organizational behavior, modern monetary theory, and knowledge management (KM). His multi-disciplinary work in the KM field focuses on enterprise architecture, knowledge portals, web 2.0, democracy, reducing decision risk, decision analysis, problem solving, measurement, the open enterprise, complex adaptive systems, fiscal policy, and conflict resolution. Dr. Firestone is the co-creator of The New Knowledge Management approach, the KM prescriptive model of the Open Enterprise, and K-STREAM™, the first comprehensive project and program methodology for Knowledge Management. He defined and specified the Enterprise Knowledge Portal concept, and developed the Open Enterprise template, the Risk Intelligence Metrics Methodology, and the Riskonomics approach to reducing the risk of error in decision models.
John Fortier
John C. Fortier has run the Democracy Program at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) since 2011. Prior to joining BPC, John was a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he served as the principal contributor to the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project, executive director of the Continuity of Government Commission, and project manager of the Transition to Governing Project. He also served as the director of the Center for the Study of American Democracy at Kenyon College and has a Ph.D. in political science from Boston College and a B.A. from Georgetown University.
He is the author of Absentee and Early Voting: Trends, Promises and Perils (AEI Press: 2006), author and editor of After the People Vote: A Guide to the Electoral College, and author and co-editor with Norman Ornstein of Second Term Blues: How George W. Bush Has Governed (Brookings Press: 2007), and numerous academic articles in political science and law journals. He has been a regular columnist for The Hill and Politico and has appeared on ABC’s Nightline, CNN, Fox News, PBS’s News Hour, CBS News, NBC’s Today Show, C-SPAN, NPR, Bloomberg, and BBC.
Daniel Gonzales
Daniel joins the Analyst Institute as a part of the Training and Outreach team. In this role, he focuses on connecting organizations and campaigns with best practices and the most cutting edge experimental learning. Prior to AI, Daniel spent 8 years managing civic engagement and policy campaigns in Colorado. Most recently, Daniel served as Program Director at the Colorado Civic Engagement where he helped build the state's C3 infrastructure. When he isn't giving a training or distilling paragraphs into bullet points, you can find Daniel overindulging is the pride of Colorado: beer, local food, hiking trails, and shows at best outdoor music venue in the world.
Honorable Thomas Hicks
The Honorable Thomas Hicks is a newly appointed Commissioner of the United States Election Assistance Commission. He served as the Senior Elections Counsel and Minority Elections Counsel on the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on House Administration from 2003 to 2014, where he oversaw all Committee matters relating to Federal elections and campaign finance. Prior to that, he was a Policy Analyst for Common Cause, a non-profit, public advocacy organization working in support of election and campaign finance reform. Common Cause was influential in the passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. He also previously served as a Special Assistant in the Office of Congressional Relations at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. He received his J.D. from the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law and his B.A. in Government from Clark University (Worcester, MA). Commissioner Hicks also studied at the University of London (London, England) and law at the University of Adelaide (Adelaide, Australia).
Paul S. Herrnson
Paul Herrnson is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut and Executive Director of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. He has published numerous books, including Voting Technology: The Not-So-Simple Act of Casting a Ballot, Congressional Elections: Campaigning at Home and in Washington, The Financiers of Congressional Elections, and Interest Groups Unleashed. He has written journal articles and book chapters on various aspects of political parties and elections, money and politics, and voting technology and election administration.
Donald S. Inbody
Donald S. Inbody is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Texas State University. He specializes in military and overseas voting. He teaches American Government and International Relations courses.
He served 28 years in the United States Navy, retiring as a Captain. While in the Navy he was Commanding Officer of USS Duluth and of the NROTC Unit at the University of Texas. He has taught at Kansas Newman College, the United States Naval Academy, Concordia University Texas, the University of Texas, and Texas State University.
He holds an MA in National Security Affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School, an MA in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College, and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas. He and his wife, Jeannine Inbody, live in Buda, Texas.
Paul Jacob
Paul Jacob serves as President of Citizens In Charge. He has worked on over 100 initiative and ballot access campaigns in nearly every state. For more than a decade, Paul ran U.S. Term Limits, the nation’s largest term limits group. Paul hosts an online, radio, and print opinion program, Common Sense, which reaches a growing list of over 15,000 e-mail subscribers and is aired daily by more than 150 stations in 48 states. Paul also writes a weekly column for Townhall.com and has appeared on Fox News, CNN, NBC’s “Today” show and ABC’s “Nightline. He has been named “a rising star in politics” by Campaigns & Elections magazine and was dubbed one of “The Best and the Rightest” by National Journal.
Michelle Jawando
Michele L. Jawando is the Vice President for Legal Progress at American Progress. Previously, she served as general counsel and senior advisor to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), where she was responsible for wide-ranging portfolio of policy issues. Prior to working for Sen. Gillibrand, Jawando served as the national campaign manager for election protection and legislative counsel at People For the American Way. Jawando started her career in public service in the office of Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY).
Jawando has been a guest speaker for numerous panels and national conferences. She has been a guest lecturer at the Santa Clara University School of Law and was recognized by the NAACP as one of the “40 Power Young Professionals Under 40” and named one of the top 15 African American women in politics under age 40. Michele holds a B.A. with honors from Hampton University and received her J.D. from the University Of North Carolina School of Law.
Kamanzi G. Kalisa
Kamanzi G. Kalisa serves as Director of the Council of State Government’s (CSG) Overseas Voting Initiative in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense’s Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) through a four-year, $3.2 million cooperative agreement in an effort to further promote the right of uniformed services personnel, their voting-age dependents, and overseas civilians to vote in U.S. elections.
Prior to joining CSG, Kalisa served as the Director of the Help America Vote Act Program for the Georgia Secretary of State for seven years, distributing federal funds to improve election administration for local jurisdictions in the State of Georgia. Kalisa holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Tufts University and a master’s degree in public administration from the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University.
Dr. Joseph Kiniry
Dr. Joseph Kiniry is a Principal Investigator at Galois. Over the past decade he has held permanent positions at four universities in Denmark, Ireland, and The Netherlands.
Joe has extensive experience in formal methods, high-assurance software engineering, foundations of computer science and mathematics, and information security. Specific areas that he has worked in include software verification foundations and tools, digital election systems and democracies, cryptography, smart-cards, smart-phones, critical systems for nation states, and CAD systems for asynchronous hardware.
He has over ten years experience in the design, development, support, and auditing of supervised and internet/remote electronic voting systems. He co-led the DemTech research group at the IT University of Copenhagen and has served as an adviser to the Dutch, Irish, and Danish governments in matters relating to electronic voting.
LtGen Jack Klimp
LtGen Klimp is a graduate of the US Naval Academy, and a combat veteran of Vietnam, Desert Storm and Somalia. He has served at all levels of command and staff in the Marine Corps, including Deputy Commandant of the Marine Corps for Manpower and Reserve Affairs.
Since leaving active service he has served as a Senior Vice President of Phoenix House; President of the Gas Appliance Manufacturers Association; CEO, Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute; President, Second Genesis; and President, National Association for Uniformed Services.
General Klimp holds two masters degrees from the US Naval War College and National University.
Manu Koenig
Manu Koenig is founder and CEO of Civinomics (civ.io), an online voting platform and political community whose mission is to increase citizen participation and improve the policy making process at all levels of government. Manu heads product development at the 3-year-old Santa Cruz based startup. Previously he worked in online advertising, building a 20 million unique user network as GM of Strategic Partnerships at Martini Media. Before that, Manu worked in web and marketing for German logistics provider Deutsche Bahn AG. He graduated from Stanford in ‘07 where he studied Management Science and German.
Dania Korkor
Dania Korkor is the Legal Analyst and Associate Director of Development at FairVote and a Project Coordinator for Representation2020. Dania earned a Bachelor of Arts from Case Western Reserve University and in 2013 she graduated with a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and a Master of Arts (M.A.) in Public Policy and Management from The Ohio State University John Glenn School of Public Affairs. While in law school, she specialized in Alternative Dispute Resolution, was the Editor-in-Chief of the Ohio State Entrepreneurial Business Law Journal, served as a policy intern at the State Department in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in the Office of Near Eastern Affairs, and served as a legal intern at the Ohio Senate. Additionally, she worked for the Ohio Attorney General, a local Ohio mayor, and the Department of Defense.
Michael Lind
Michael Lind is co-founder of the New America Foundation and became New America’s first fellow in 1999. With Ted Halstead he wrote New America’s manifesto, The Radical Center (2001) and wrote the first book published under the New America imprint with Basic Books, Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics (2003). Lind co-founded the American Strategy Program, named after his book The American Way of Strategy (2006). At present he is policy director of New America's Economic Growth Program.
A graduate of the University of Texas and Yale, Lind has taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins and been an editor or staff writer for The New Yorker, Harper’s, The New Republic and The National Interest. Lind is a columnist for Salon and is the author of numerous books of history, political journalism, fiction, poetry and children’s literature. His most recent book is Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States (2012).
Mark Listes
Mark Listes, Director and co-founder of Revive My Vote: Revive My Vote raises awareness about the voting rights restoration process for people with prior felony convictions and helps Virginians navigate this process. Mark has a Bachelor of Arts & Sciences in Political Science from the University of Tennessee, and he is currently studying law at William & Mary Law School. Mark has researched state election laws at the National Conference of State Legislatures and has worked on multiple political campaigns.
In addition to working as the Director of Revive My Vote, Mark is also a Graduate Research Fellow for William & Mary Law School’s Election Law Program. Previously, Mark co-founded and was the director of the Tennessee Creative Council, a non-partisan think tank in Tennessee. Mark recently authored an NCSL publication, Reducing Lies in Elections.
Jeanne Massey
Jeanne Massey is Executive Director of FairVote Minnesota,which promotes progressive voting systems that lead to greater competitiveness, better representation and more participation. She spearheaded the adoption of and public education campaigns for Ranked Choice Voting in Minneapolis and St. Paul and is a leading expert on electoral reform in Minnesota. She serves as a frequent resource for the media and presenter at state and national conferences. Jeanne has over 25 years of experience in nonprofit leadership and community planning and organizing. A former Peace Corps volunteer, she holds an M.A. in Regional & Community Planning and a B.A. in Business & Spanish. She is active in her community and has served on several community and nonprofit boards.
David Mermin
David Mermin is a partner at Lake Research Partners and heads the firm’s California office. He advises candidates as well as a wide range of non-partisan organizations. He has served as pollster and strategist for several members of Congress, and for numerous state and local ballot initiative campaigns. David and his team recently completed a two-year study of the voting process for military and civilian U.S. citizens living abroad for the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP).
David joined LRP in 1996. He has presented research findings to audiences across the country and has published articles in The American Prospect, Health Affairs, Aspenia and The Polling Report. A native of Atlanta, Georgia, he now lives in Berkeley, California, and holds an M.A. in Geography from the University of Minnesota, and a B.A. in Political Science from Brown University.
Dave Meslin
Dave Meslin is an artist and community catalyst who inspires better engagement between governments and citizens. Meslin, Toronto-based, co-founded Spacing Magazine and then created the WhoRunsThisTown project in 2006. Later, he founded the Toronto Cyclists Union as well as started started another magazine -- Dandyhorse Magazine. Recent projects include curating the Fourth Wall exhibit, which reflects on issues of local politics in Toronto.
Meslin is currently a community organizer, promoting his thoughts on political change, cycling reform, and public space issues through his blog. He also founded the Ranked Ballot Initiative of Toronto. He has written a book called 'Local Motion: The Art of Civic Engagement in Toronto.' As an active member of the political community in Toronto, the speeches by Dave Meslin spark passionate dialogue about changing social norms and becoming more action-focused as members of a thriving city.
Amaris Montes
Amaris Montes is an advocacy and outreach fellow at FairVote, where she assists in the coordination of Representation 2020 and Promote Our Vote. Amaris’ background in election reform includes an internship with the National Education Association’s Campaign and Elections Team. She also was an intern in Cuernavaca, Mexico with the Center for Global Education and traveled to Thailand to conduct an independent research project on the rights of Thai sex workers as a Ronald McNair Scholar. She graduated in 2013 with a dual honors B.A. in Anthropology and Rhetoric.
Terence Muhammad
Terence Muhammad was born and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina where he later attended NC A&T State University. This is where he started his journey in community activism and organizing. He is now the Logistical Coordinator for the Hip Hop Caucus National Office. Mr. Muhammad has been involved in community organizing for over 20 years in economics, education, climate change, police accountability, health, youth issues, and a whole lot more. His worked involves educating people young and old on the issues and then organizing them to affect change in policies, whether it be through voting or speaking out in public forums.
Mr. Muhammad has national and local influence in communities of color in the religious community, law enforcement, government, medical institution, higher education, and areas of environmental justice. Mr. Muhammad has a passion for working with young people and has used Hip Hop as a vehicle to get them engaged in the many areas of work that directly affect their lives. Mr. Muhammad is the next generation of leadership that is helping to shape our communities, country, and world.
Dr. Judy Murray
Dr. Murray is an independent consultant specializing in elections, election administration and public policy effectiveness with a focus on the political behavior of diasporas. Dr. Murray’s research utilizes both qualitative and quantitative approaches with an emphasis on survey construction, administration and data analysis. Dr. Murray has taught British Politics, American Politics and European Union Politics at Newcastle and Durham Universities for 6 years. She is also an educational assessor for the largest academic awarding body in the UK.
Dr. Murray is an Associate Practitioner with the Higher Education Academy, and a member of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors. She is also a member of The Academy of Political Science, The American Political Science Association, and The British Association for American Studies. She holds a BA(Hons) First Class in Politics and Scottish History from Stirling University, United Kingdom and received her PhD in Politics from Newcastle University, United Kingdom.
Krist Novoselic
A member of the groundbreaking rock band Nirvana, Krist Novoselic, along with band mates, Kurt Cobain and Dave Grohl, changed the course of music history when they snapped up Billboard Magazine's number one spot with their much-acclaimed album Nevermind. After Nirvana, Novoselic went on to become one of rock's most politically minded musicians. In 2004, Krist wrote "Of Grunge & Government: Let's Fix This Broken Democracy!” leading to appearances on network television and a New Yorker profile. Krist joined FairVote's Board in 2005 and was elected chair in 2008.
Rob Richie
Rob Richie has directed FairVote since 1992 and has played a key role in advancing, winning and implementing electoral reforms at a local and state level, including ranked choice voting in more than a dozen cities, cumulative voting in Voting Rights Act cases, the National Popular Vote plan in 11 states and voter access proposals like voter preregistration and a lower voting age. His writings have appeared in major national publications and in nine books, including as co-author of Every Vote Equal about Electoral College reform and Whose Votes Count about ranked choice voting and fair representation.
He has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, NBC News, CNN, FOX, Bloomberg News, Democracy Now and MSNBC and addressed conventions of the American Political Science Association, National Association of Counties, National Association of Secretaries of State and National Conference of State Legislatures. He serves on the Corporation of Haverford College, where he earned his B.A. in philosophy.
Steve Roberts
Steve Roberts is J.B. and M.C. Shapiro Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. He has been a journalist for almost 50 years, covering some of the major events of his time, from the antiwar movement and student revolts of the 60s and 70s to President Reagan's historic trip to Moscow in 1988 and twelve presidential election campaigns. After graduating from Harvard magna cum laude in 1964, he joined the New York Times as research assistant to James 'Scotty' Reston, then the paper's Washington bureau chief. His 25-year career with the Times included assignments as bureau chief in Los Angeles and Athens, and as Congressional and White House correspondent. He was a senior writer at U.S. News for seven years, specializing in national politics and foreign policy. Roberts and his wife, TV journalist Cokie Roberts, write a nationally-syndicated newspaper column that was named one of the ten most popular columns in America by Media Matters.
A well-known commentator on many Washington-based TV shows, Roberts also appears regularly as a political analyst on the ABC radio network and is a substitute host on NPR's "Diane Rehm Show." As a teacher, he lectures widely on American politics and the role of the news media. Since 1997 he has been the Shapiro Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, where he has taught for the last 23 years.
Drew Spencer
Drew Spencer is a staff attorney at FairVote, where he has worked since 2012. While at Fairvote, Drew's work has focused on racial minority vote dilution, the Voting Rights Act, as well as ranked choice voting and related issues. In addition, Drew helped launch FairVote's podcast, FairVote Voices and co-authored The Right Choice for Elections: How Choice Voting Will End Gerrymandering and Expand Minority Voting Rights, From City Councils to Congress, which was published in the University of Richmond Law Review'. Drew regularly represents FairVote on television and radio and in print. He is a graduate of the University of Arizona law school.
Josh Silver
Josh Silver is the CEO of Represent.US, a national nonpartisan organization challenging the undue influence of big money special interests in American politics. Prior to that, he was the President & CEO of Free Press, the nation's leading media and technology public interest organization. Josh was the campaign manager of the successful ballot initiative for Clean Elections in Arizona and director of development for the cultural arm of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. He has published extensively on media policy, campaign finance and other public policy issues.
Cynthia Terrell
Cynthia Terrell is a founder of FairVote andand now chairs FairVote’s Representation 2020 project, which works to remove the structural barriers to women’s electoral success in the United States. She has served as a board member of several charitable organizations and Quaker institutions including the American Friends Service Committee and Sandy Spring Friends School. Terrell has worked in the area of voting system reform in this country and abroad. Before helping to found FairVote, Terrell worked as campaign manager and field director for campaigns for the U.S. President, U.S. House and U.S. Senate, for governor and for state and city ballot measures. She has three children and graduated with a B.A. in political science from Swarthmore College in 1986.