Sean McElwee
Sean is a co-founder of Data for Progress. He has spent half a decade bringing cutting edge data analysis to progressive advocacy and his work has been cited by politicians at the national, state and local level. He conducted extensive research on the Oregon automatic voter registration system and advised New York lawmakers on automatic voter registration in New York. He has provided testimony and statistical analysis on AVR to lawmakers across the country.
Edgardo Cortés
Edgardo Cortés has worked in elections for more than 15 years, with experience in all facets of the electoral process including campaigns, non-partisan voter registration, federal and state election policy, and local and state election administration. As the first Virginia Commissioner of Elections, Cortés spearheaded voter registration and election administration modernization efforts in the Commonwealth. Additionally, Cortés served as the Chairman of the Board for the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) and Chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission Standards Board.
David Becker
David Becker is the Executive Director and Founder of the non-profit Center for Election Innovation & Research. As one of the foremost election experts in the country, David has led CEIR’s successful efforts to help election officials of both parties, all around the country, ensure that all eligible voters can vote conveniently in a system with maximum integrity. Prior to founding CEIR, David was Director of the elections program at The Pew Charitable Trusts. As the lead for Pew’s analysis and advocacy on elections issues, David spearheaded development of the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, which to date has helped a bipartisan group of over half the states update over 10 million out-of-date voter records, and helped those states register millions of new eligible voters. Before joining Pew, David served for seven years as a senior trial attorney in the Voting Section of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, and served as lead counsel on major voting rights litigation, including the case of Georgia v. Ashcroft, ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Gary Decker
Gary is the Director of Issue Campaigns at the Alliance for Youth Organizing. He has spent more than 10 years working on public policy at the national and international levels to improve lives in the United States and around the world. He has worked on issues ranging from the protection and expansion of voting rights, eliminating the corrupting influence of money in politics, sustainable development and climate change, health care, and building a more equitable and inclusive economy. He holds a master’s degree in international relations and international economics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a bachelor’s degree from Goucher College in political science.
Monica Childers
Monica is a civic technologist with a background in digital product design and project management. A champion of collaborative design, she partners with state and local election officials to promote low cost, flexible tools for election administration. Over the past decade she has designed online voter engagement platforms, vote-by-mail ballot tracking systems, and tools for conducting robust post-election tabulation audits. Having served as the project manager for Colorado’s risk-limiting audit software for the past year, she is now consulting with states implementing risk-limiting audits and helping shepherd the development of nationwide RLA software.