Rina Shah Bharara is a strategic consultant, media commentator, & millennial entrepreneur based in Washington, DC. Prior to launching Rilax Strategies – a government and public affairs firm - Rina served as a senior staffer to Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-5) and Rep. Jeff B. Miller (FL-1).  Her expertise includes building winning strategies for political campaigns as well as coordinating public affairs efforts for Fortune 500 companies.

She currently serves as an Advisor to VoteRunLead, Spokeswoman for NextGen GOP, a 2015 Founder of RightNOW Women PAC, Co-Chair of Concord 51's DC Chapter, and as an inaugural member of the U.S. House of Representatives Republican Conference's Indian American Advisory Council.

Grace Ramsey is the Co-Director of Democracy Rising. Grace brings over 9 years of experience working on RCV advocacy and implementation campaigns across the country. She began her career as an organizer with FairVote Minnesota’s Rank Your Vote campaign, went on to become Deputy Director of Outreach at FairVote, and led voter education and organizing campaigns as a consultant with Democracy in Action. Over the course of several years and many campaigns she has come to deeply understand and appreciate the power of community organizing and has solidified her belief that a strong democracy is one that evolves to better serve the people.

Roxy Szal is the digital editor at Ms. and a producer on the Ms. podcast "On the Issues With Michele Goodwin." Before becoming a journalist, she was a Texas public school English teacher. She is based in Austin, Texas.

Ava Mateo (she/her) is the Executive Director of 18by Vote, a nonpartisan organization that helps 16, 17, and 18-year-olds understand how, when, and why to vote. She believes deeply in the power of youth and finds it her mission to spread opportunities for meaningful civic engagement among teens and young adults. At 18by Vote, Ava leads an entirely youth-led team in the development and execution of hyper-localized youth voter outreach programming. This programming supports paid youth participants in becoming catalysts for civic action within their own communities.

With an immense passion for sustaining democracy through the American public school system, she is also an MA candidate at Columbia University, Teachers College studying Sociology and Education with a concentration in Education Policy. Her current research is focused on the influence of youth-led organizations and youth educational programs on youth participants’ socio-political identity development. Ava is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, Class of 2020.

Nicole Austin-Hillery is the US Program Executive Director for Human Rights Watch, leading efforts to end violations in the abusive US immigration system, tackle race discrimination and other rights problems with the domestic criminal justice system, and advocate for national security policies informed by international human rights standards. She is an adjunct civil rights professor at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law. Additionally, she serves as an Advisor on Democracy & Voting Rights for the Millennial Policy Initiative Commission.

Nicole Austin-Hillery was the first Director and Counsel of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law Washington DC Office. In her role, Ms. Austin-Hilleryoversaw the growth and development of the Brennan Center’s advocacy and policy development work in Washington. She served as the chief advocate for the Brennan Center on a host of justice and democracy issues and coordinates coalition work with other civil rights, social justice, and democracy organizations in Washington.

Ms. Austin-Hillery has written opinion pieces for several publications including Roll Call, The Root, CNN, and BillMoyers.com, and has been a contributing writer to several advocacy publications. Notably, she recently authored a chapter in the American Bar Association’s 2016 volume of America Votes entitled “Voter ID as a Form of Voter Suppression.” She has testified before state and local legislative bodies as well as submitted testimony for Congressional hearings and serves as a frequent speaker on a host of public interest issues.

Ms. Austin-Hillery is a graduate of the Howard University School of Law and Carnegie Mellon University. She practiced with the law firm Mehri &Skalet, PLLC as part of the firm’s civil rights employment class action practice, and as the George N. Lindsay Civil Rights Law Fellow at the national office of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, where she focused on housing litigation and policy. She is also a former Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School. 

 Ms. Austin-Hillery currently serves on the boards of directors of Common Cause and the Washington Council of Lawyers, and is President-Elect of the Washington Bar Association. She is an appointed member of the ABA Advisory Committee on Election Law and serves as co-chair of the ABA Criminal Justice Section’s Defense Function Committee.

Justice Anita Earls is a civil rights attorney and Associate Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. Anita Sue Earls was born in Seattle, Washington on February 20, 1960, and raised there by her father, Garnett Austin Brooks, and her mother, Hazel Elliott Brooks, both deceased. Her father was a certified urology associate and her mother was a registered nurse. Anita attended public schools and was awarded a National Achievement Scholarship upon graduation from high school.

Anita received a Lehman Scholarship from Williams College, where, in 1981, she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Economy (with honors) and Philosophy. 

Upon graduating, Anita was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to pursue the study of cooperative work organizations and the role of women in Tanzania. Returning to the United States after three years abroad, Anita obtained her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was a Senior Editor on the Yale Law Journal and published a note titled “Petitioning and the Empowerment Theory of Practice”. She was the first Robert Masur Fellow in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the Nation Institute in 1987.

Following law school, in January 1988 Anita joined the firm of Ferguson, Stein, Watt, Wallas, Adkins & Gresham in Charlotte, North Carolina.  In private practice, she litigated in state and federal courts, handing family law, criminal defense, personal injury, voting rights, police misconduct, school desegregation, and employment discrimination cases. 

Anita was appointed by President Clinton in 1998 to serve as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. From 2000 to 2003, she directed the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.  Returning to North Carolina in 2003, she joined Julius Chambers at the UNC Center for Civil Rights as Director of Advocacy.

In 2007 Anita founded the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, a non-profit legal advocacy organization, and served as its Executive Director for ten years.  While there Anita litigated voting rights and other civil rights cases.  

Anita has taught at the University of Maryland and the University of North Carolina law schools, and in the African and African-American Studies Department at Duke University.  She is admitted to practice in North Carolina, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Onida Coward Mayers is Vice President of the MiRam group, the former Director for New York City’s Voter Assistance at the Campaign Finance Board, and an award-winning communications executive. For the past 10+ years, Ms. Coward Mayers directed strategic voter outreach, policy, and vision planning for one of the largest voting populations in the United States. In her capacity at the CFB, Ms. Coward Mayers led the launch of the nonpartisan NYC Votes Program aimed at increasing voter awareness, education, and participation. In 2013, she led New York City to place second in the United States for the highest number of people registered in a single day. Ms. Coward Mayers is also an Adjunct Professor of Public Speaking for the City University of New York.

Maggie Toulouse Oliver is New Mexico’s 26th Secretary of State. She has served the people of New Mexico in this role since first being elected in 2016. She was first appointed to public office in 2007 when she became County Clerk in New Mexico’s largest county, Bernalillo County. Elected to her first full term in 2008, Secretary Toulouse Oliver served 2 1/2 terms as County Clerk. Overseeing elections in the state’s largest county gave Secretary Toulouse Oliver detailed, on-the-ground expertise in election administration that has helped to guide her current work overseeing elections statewide.

Secretary Toulouse Oliver has been involved in politics and public policy for over two decades and has made public service the focus of her career. Her work has focused on increasing voter access, running efficient, secure, and fair elections, and bringing more transparency and increased ethical standards to the government.

Secretary Toulouse Oliver worked her way through college and graduate school. While earning her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Political Science from the University of New Mexico, Secretary Toulouse Oliver worked for U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman in his DC Office and on his re-election campaign in 2000. She also gained activism and organizing experience working with Native American tribes in New Mexico, fighting for reproductive justice, and protecting the Environment as the NM State Director for the League of Conservation Voters.

Since becoming Secretary of State she has implemented increased transparency rules for financial disclosure and campaign finance reporting, modernized the online campaign finance system, helped craft and pass good-government legislation like same-day voter registration, automated voter registration, and the state’s newly-formed Ethics Commission.

In addition to her elected position, Secretary Toulouse Oliver is the immediate Past President of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), and has previously served NASS as President, President-Elect, Treasurer, and chair of the elections committee. She serves as a board member of New Mexico’s Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA), the New Mexico Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission, and the state Commission on Records and Archives. She is currently a member of the University of Southern California Annenberg Center’s Voter Communication task force, and an advisory board member for the Election Official Legal Defense Network co-founded by national election law experts Benjamin Ginsburg and Bob Bauer.

She is also a Ph.D. Student in Political Science at the University of New Mexico and is a W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Leadership Network Fellowship alumna. Most importantly, she is the proud mother of two sons, Christian and Max.

Delegate Jheanelle Wilkins proudly represents the 20th Legislative District in the Maryland House of Delegates. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, she is dedicated to policy change that makes a difference in people’s lives.

Delegate Wilkins serves on the House Ways and Means Committee where she is the Chair of the Subcommittee on Election Law, leading the House in passing election policy and expanding voter access, including passing Maryland’s permanent mail-in ballot list, voting access for incarcerated individuals, and expansion of early voting sites. She also serves in the Speaker’s leadership team as the Parliamentarian of the Maryland House of Delegates, responsible for upholding efficient, fair, and orderly procedures as the House conducts the business of the State. Delegate Wilkins has championed and successfully passed legislation dealing with racial profiling and justice reform, maternal health, and increasing educational outcomes for all students.

Professionally, she works full time as the Director of State and Local Government Affairs at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights coalition. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of Delaware and a Master of Public Administration in Social Policy from the American University.

Erin Vilardi is the Founder and CEO of Vote Run Lead, the nation’s largest and most diverse training program for women to run for office and win. She first launched the program as Vice President of Program and Communications at The White House Project. She has also served as a Leadership Development Consultant for a range of clients, including Fortune 100 companies, global girls’ initiatives, and the U.S. Department of State, reaching women leaders in a dozen international cities. 

Vilardi is the co-author of the Athena CORE10©, an innovative set of leadership competencies for 21st-century women leaders based on the latest research and gender analysis for the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College. She has appeared on the main stage at Personal Democracy Forum, on CNN, BBC, and Fox News, and her work was featured in O, The Oprah Magazine, Marie Claire, New York Magazine as well as numerous international and domestic articles on women and leadership. She is an Executive Producer of Ann Richards’ Texas, a documentary about the late pioneering governor.

Maria Perez is the Co-Director of Democracy Rising, a program of More Equitable Democracy that seeks to create a democracy where all communities have political equity and are fully able to participate in shaping policy and holding elected officials accountable. Maria previously served as Campaign Lead and later as Interim Hub Manager for the California Endowment’s project Building Healthy Communities (East Oakland), Director of FairVote New Mexico, and more recently as Campaign Manager for Common Cause New Mexico.

Born and raised in Ecuador, Maria immigrated to the United States in the 1990s to pursue her education. She has crafted a career guided by her passion to address social disparities. A seasoned non-profit leader, organizer, facilitator, advocate, educator, and coalition builder, Maria is a firm believer in the power of people coming together to address complex social problems. She spent over ten years as a healthcare practitioner, before turning to policy, equity, and advocacy work, which she has been doing for the past ten years.

She served as Campaign Lead and later as Interim Hub Manager for the California Endowment’s project Building Healthy Communities (East Oakland), Director of FairVote New Mexico, and more recently as Campaign Manager for Common Cause New Mexico. She and co-director Grace Ramsey launched the national organization Democracy Rising in 2020.

Katie Fahey served as founder and Executive Director and campaign manager of Voters Not Politicians, a grassroots, nonpartisan campaign that ran a successful effort to end gerrymandering in Michigan by amending the State Constitution in 2018 with 61% of the vote.

Responding to extreme divisiveness in politics following the 2016 election, Katie posted on Facebook asking if anyone would like to take on gerrymandering in Michigan, and almost by accident, sparked a political movement that mobilized over 10,000 volunteers to collect more than 425,000 petition signatures from every county in the state without spending a dime for them, a feat unheard of in Michigan.

Now, Katie is Executive Director of The People, a nonprofit organization committed to sharing the lessons learned in Michigan with voters across the ideological spectrum in all 50 states, bridging political divides, and supporting nonpartisan good governance reforms nationwide.

Katie was the main subject for the critically acclaimed 2019 documentary, Slay the Dragon. She has been featured in articles by the New York Times, Salon, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and The Guardian, among others. Katie has also appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR, and has presented at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Rebecca Chavez-Houck holds a BA in Journalism and Mass Communication and a Master of Public Administration (MPA), both from the University of Utah (U of U). She represented Salt Lake City’s District 24 in the Utah House of Representatives from 2008-18, focusing on public policy related to health and human services as well as voter engagement and access. Her leadership appointments included: House Minority Whip (2014-16) and House Minority Assistant Whip (2012-14).

She now provides leadership coaching and community engagement consulting through her public affairs firm, Aspira Public Affairs, LLC.

Legislative appointments that influenced her policy agenda include service on former Governor Jon Huntsman's 2009 Commission to Strengthen Utah's Democracy. Rebecca successfully sponsored bills establishing Election Day Voter Registration, Election Day Voting Centers, and policies for emergency voting in case of natural disasters, among other elections reforms. Her 2017 Ranked Choice Voting bill was a precursor to Utah’s 2018 RCV municipal pilot law. She is a 2012 Council of State Governments (CSG) Toll Fellows Graduate and served as Latino Voting and Elections Task Force Chair for the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators.

Rebecca was a public affairs staffer for a number of local Utah nonprofits from 1985 to 2007 and cultivated a parallel “career” as a volunteer for myriad local and national nonprofits. She has been honored extensively for her efforts. Rebecca teaches non-profit administration classes as adjunct faculty for the U of U’s MPA program.

Sarah Higginbotham is Unite America's Managing Director. As such, she is tasked with overseeing the Unite America Fund, an innovative philanthropic venture fund that seeks to scale the non-partisan democracy reform movement. Sarah has spent her career at the helm of winning campaigns to effect policy change and elect candidates to protect the public interest.

She has served in key leadership roles in government affairs at state and national organizations, working on issues including gun violence prevention, public health, voting rights, and renewable energy, among others. She has dozens of successful legislative victories in both red and blue states under her belt on some of the country's toughest issues.

Stephanie Houghton is originally from Massachusetts, although she has spent the last few years hopscotching across the country working for candidates at every level of government. 2020 found her in South Carolina as Elizabeth Warren’s Operations Director and also as Michelle De La Isla’s Campaign Manager in Kansas’ Second Congressional District.

For the last year, she has served as the Organizing and Legislative Director for FairVote Washington - spreading the word about how ranked-choice voting works and why it's a vital next step for our Democracy. As a Woman of Field, Stephanie has been dedicated to increasing turnout through one on one conversations and community organizing.

When she’s not knocking doors or making calls she’s probably browsing cookbooks or hiking with her dog, Zinnia.

Jaqueline Castaneda is currently a board member with the DC Latino Caucus in Washington, DC. She is pursuing her Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, where she also received her Masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. Through her involvement in the DC Latino Caucus, Jaqueline has strongly advocated for more representation of Latinx/o/a people in DC.

Her most notable work has been championing Ranked Choice Voting in DC alongside other DC grassroots organizations. As a DC native, Jaqueline believes that there is power in the voices of the people of DC and will ensure that all hear these voices.

Jessica Lieberman is a Program Officer for American Institutions at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. In this role, she works to implement the recommendations in the Academy's landmark 2020 report, Our Common Purpose, with a focus on reforms related to political institutions and voting.

Prior to joining the Academy, Jessica served as a Senior Campaign Advisor for New Politics, a bipartisan organization that provides leadership training and campaign advice to veterans and national service alumni running for elected office.

She has a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, a J.D. from Boston College Law School, and a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University.