Our Staff
Tony Anthony joins the Voting for America staff as Regional Director. Tony has more than 15 years of campaign and organizing experience, serving as a senior-level consultant of several statewide campaigns in Louisiana, Mississippi, Maryland, Georgia, and New Jersey.
In 2004, Tony became the Campaign Director for VIP: Voting is Power—a $9 million national non-partisan campaign organization—helping register 275,000 never-before registered African-Americans and Latinos in Florida, Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where voter participation subsequently increased in historically low-turnout precincts.
Aziza Naa-Kaa Botchway joined Project Vote in 2012 as the Election Administration Manager for Florida. She is responsible for identifying and resolving barriers to registration and voting. Her work includes legislative and administrative advocacy, media activities, legal and field research, organizing, and leading or supporting coalitions. Aziza previously served the University of Miami School of Law, Center for Ethics and Public Service as the Director of the Joint Program on Law, Public Policy and Ethics. She also worked with the Hunger Project, where she collaborated to develop numerous interdisciplinary conferences, colloquia, seminars, and lectures and taught law and undergraduate courses on Law, Public Policy and Ethics; Law and Society: Race and America; Law, Culture and Society and Critical Race Feminism. Aziza began her legal career practicing criminal law as an assistant public defender in Miami. She went on to practice civil rights law and community organizing as a staff attorney for ACLU of Florida’s Racial Justice & Voting Rights Project. Aziza also taught language arts, mathematics and science for students with special needs in both Fulton County Schools in Atlanta, Georgia and Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Florida. She received a B.S. in Psychology, summa cum laude, from Bethune-Cookman College, a M.S. in Education from the University of Miami School of Education, and her J.D. from the University of Miami School of Law.
As Project Vote’s Field Director, Amy Busefink is responsible for the development and execution of field activities across Project Vote’s many program areas. Working with the Election Administration program, she works to develop field strategies for moving issues in several states, including the preregistration of 16 and 17-year-old citizens and voter registration on high school campuses. Over the last two years, Ms. Busefink has participated in the successful fight against legislation that creates barriers to voters, including photo ID efforts in Missouri. She continues to develop voter participation and voter registration field programs, utilizing new and exciting technology for Get-Out-the-Vote efforts.
Ms. Busefink came to Project Vote as its national voter registration director in June 2006, when she assumed responsibility for Project Vote’s 2006 voter registration program. She ran field operations for Project Votes 2008 voter registration program, which collected 1.1 million applications. She came to Project Vote with four years of grassroots organizing experience, including managing the North Florida field program of the successful 2004 Florida Minimum Wage Campaign. Ms. Busefink graduated from Florida State University in 2003 with a B.A. in Political Science. She resides in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Daniel Charlton joined Project Vote in August of 2009 as Field Manager, working to organize and execute voter participation and advocacy programs across the country and representing Project Vote at the 501(c)(3) civic engagement tables in Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. With Project Vote, Mr. Charlton organized a pilot volunteer voter registration drive in Hampton Roads, Virginia, and spearheaded Project Vote’s upcoming report on the conditions of voting in Virginia. In August 2010 he was promoted to Operations Manager. Mr. Charlton came to Project Vote with the experience from working on several different issue and electoral field campaigns across America, and has also worked as a facilitator for a youth leadership program and an automotive mechanic. In December 2007, Mr. Charlton graduated from the James Madison College of Public Affairs at Michigan State University with a bachelor’s degree in Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy and a specialization in Social Relations and Policy.
Catherine Flanagan brings to Project Vote a decade of public service in the government and private sectors. Most recently, she founded and managed a program providing pro bono legal representation for indigent survivors of domestic violence in the District of Columbia. She also served as a trial and appellate attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, Environment Division, and advised the Assistant Attorney General on policy and legislative matters. Ms. Flanagan formerly represented the Maryland Department of the Environment and was a litigator in private practice. She earned a BA, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania and a JD and a MA in English from the University of Virginia. She is a contributing editor of the Washington Independent Review of Books.
Olivia Frazier, Major Gift Officer, joined Project Vote in 2011 with more than 10 years of fundraising experience. Most recently, she served as the Sierra Club’s Advancement Director for the Southeast, where she did major gift fundraising in 13 states. Previously, Ms. Frazier worked at the national headquarters for the National Audubon Society in New York, where she wrote direct mail appeals and grant proposals. Ms. Frazier is a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, and once had her own environmental column for a Massachusetts newspaper.
Kelly Gerlach works as a Policy Analyst for Project Vote. In this position, she coordinates and analyzes data on state compliance with federal laws for the Public Agency Registration Project. Previously, Kelly worked for the Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan's office, where she administered state and federal elections. During her time at the Secretary of State's office, Kelly helped coordinate the ballot initiative process as well as electoral administration projects for the Elections Division. Originally from Illinois, Kelly obtained a B.A. in Political Science and a M.P.A. from Southern Illinois University.
Jeremiah L. Grace brings to Voting for America a decade of public service in the government and non-profit sectors. Most recently, he served as interim Executive Director of iReform, Inc., a community organizing education reform group, which he designed. He had previously served as executive director of PENewark, as commissioned by Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker. Mr. Grace also led the racial justice program at the ACLU of New Jersey and was elected to the Elizabeth Board of Education. He is a board member of New Leaders Council, TogetherAsOne Foundation and People Preparatory School.
Nicole Howard joined Project Vote as Executive Assistant in December 2011. She provides administrative support, manages and maintains scheduling, financial data and memos. She also assists the communications department. Previously, Nicole worked as a marketing assistant for a real estate company and interned for the Idaho Wine Commission doing public relations and marketing work.
As Director of Development, Jennifer Jacquot-DeVries leads Project Vote's development department, and is responsible for cultivating and stewarding relationships with supporting foundations and individual donors. Ms. Jacquot-DeVries manages grant application and reporting deadlines, writes and oversees the production of fundraising materials, conducts prospect research, and maintains the organization’s recently refined donor database and filing systems. Ms. Jacquot-DeVries also works to facilitate positive relationships with supporting foundations and individual donors, assisting in scheduling and coordination of meetings and events where necessary. She is also the organization’s Minnesota representative for State Voices. Prior to joining Project Vote full-time in November 2009, Ms. Jacquot-DeVries was a fundraising consultant to Project Vote during the historic 2008 election year. She previously worked for Minneapolis Public Schools and has volunteered with the Foundation for Immigrant Resources and Education (FIRE) and AmeriCorps. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University in May 2008.
Angelica Johnson brings to Project Vote more than 16 years of financial experience working with non-profit organizations, the federal government, defense contracting, and Big 4 Accounting firms. Ms. Johnson has a varied background of finance and accounting that includes regulatory information, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, and financial analysis. She has defined, developed, and implemented many new finance systems for non-profit organizations and corporations. Ms. Johnson also has had extensive experience working with U.S. Aid, World Bank, and Department of Navy-funded projects around the world.
Sabrina Khan graduated from American University Washington College of Law in 2010. While in law school, she argued her first case as part of the General Practice Clinic, was a staff writer for The Modern American: A Scholarly Publication Dedicated to Diversity and the Law, and served as a Dean's Fellow. She interned at the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division in both the Voting and Special Litigation Sections and at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law. Previously, she had been a paralegal at Paduano & Weintraub LLP in New York City, taught Special Education in Brooklyn through Teach For America, and interned at the World Bank. Ms. Khan holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government with minors in English and Sociology from Georgetown University.
Erin Ferns Lee is the Communications Manager at Project
Vote. Since August 2006, Ms. Lee has helped shape Project Vote’s current
methods of communicating important election administration issues and
Project Vote’s work. Ms. Lee has authored several memos and briefs
assessing election legislation and election policy, emphasizing youth
voting issues since early 2008. In particular, she leads Project Vote’s
Election Legislation project, a bill-tracking service that covers a
range of issues on the federal and state levels that includes the
widely-read weekly Election Legislation eDigest and bi-annual Threats
& Opportunities legislative assessment memos. She also
manages and serves as lead writer on Project Vote’s blog, Voting
Matters and produces the monthly newsletter, Strengthening
Democracy. Prior to joining Project Vote’s staff, Ms. Lee graduated with
honors from the School of Journalism and Media Studies at San Diego
State University. Ms. Lee is based
in California.
Sarah Massey joined Project Vote in December 2011 to advance our communications strategy around election administration issues. Over the past six years, Sarah has been consulting for national organizations like Project Vote, artists, and socially-responsible businesses with her public relations firm, Massey Media. Sarah's past experience includes serving as Media Specialist for the AFL-CIO, Communications Director for the National Employment Law Project, and Communications Director for WE ACT for Environmental Justice.
Michael McDunnah joined Project Vote in 2008, and oversees all aspects of the organization's communications efforts and strategy, including managing media relations, overseeing online communications, and serving as chief editor on all publications. His prior experience includes nearly ten years of fundraising and communications work for nonprofits, including serving as the Development & Communications Director for Rainbow House, a Chicago domestic violence agency, and over five years at IFF, the Midwest’s largest nonprofit CDFI, where he helped secure foundation, corporate, and government grants and program-related investments. A graduate of the Johnston Center for Integrated Studies at the University of Redlands, Mr. McDunnah resides in Washington, D.C.
Brian Mellor is Project Vote’s Senior Counsel and manages Project Vote’s litigation staff. He has worked with Project Vote since 2005 litigating cases, administering voter participation programs, and providing corporate advice and services. Mr. Mellor helped develop and implement Project Vote’s voter registration drives in 2005, 2006, and 2007-2008. In that role, he wrote the quality control manual, oversaw the national quality control program, and prepared material used to defend the efforts from reprehensible attacks by partisan organizations and the media. As co-counsel, Mr. Mellor has litigated cases that that overturned onerous restrictions on voter registration drives. He has also successfully challenged other statutory or regulatory obstacles to voter participation. He has also co-counseled cases enforcing Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act that requires states to offer voter registration opportunities to public assistance clients. Prior to working with Project Vote, Mr. Mellor was a local field director on a voter registration and get-out-the-vote campaign in Florida, worked with a labor union and housing advocacy organization, and worked as a community organizer in a number of communities across the country. Mr. Mellor holds a B.A. from Williams College and a J.D. from Boston University.
Allecia Lindsey Pottinger joined Project Vote in 2012 as the Election Administration Manager for Texas. She is responsible for identifying and resolving barriers to registration and voting. Her work includes legislative and administrative advocacy, media activities, legal and field research, organizing, and leading or supporting coalitions. Allecia previously worked as a hearing examiner for the Texas Education Agency and independent practitioner who founded the Lindsey Pottinger Law Firm, PLLC. She was the former legal program director for the NAACP-Houston Branch and has participated in the ABA’s Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, Election Protection Project since 2004. She serves on several boards and committees: Board Member of the State Bar of Texas African American Lawyers Section, Vice President of Independent Heights Community Health Center, Board Member and Chairman of the Supervisory Committee of the Brentwood Baptist Church Federal Credit Union, and also serves as the Le Tigers Booster Club President of the TSU Lady Tiger Bowling team who have won several SWAC championships and were the 2005 National Western Division champs. Allecia attended Texas Southern University where she received her Bachelor degree in Sociology, and Juris Doctorate.
Estelle Rogers, an attorney, has been Project Vote’s Director of Advocacy since January 2010. In this position, she coordinates the organization’s policy work on both state and federal levels, including interacting directly with legislators and staff, writing testimony and public education materials, and building coalitions with other organizations. Prior to joining the Project Vote staff, Ms. Rogers spent several years as a part-time consultant to the organization. Her work included representing Project Vote at meetings and legislative hearings, preparing a voting rights agenda for submission to the Presidential Transition Team in 2008-2009, and authoring The National Voter Registration Act at Fifteen: A Report to Congress. Ms. Roger’s work on civic engagement issues began in 2004, when she served as special counsel to America’s Families United, supervising the verification of thousands of new voter registrations in 65 counties in 17 states. In 2005-2006, she was a senior staff attorney with Advancement Project, continuing her legal work on voter registration and election administration issues. She serves in the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates and is a member of the ABA’s Standing Committee on Election Law. She also serves on the board of the Capital Area Immigrant Rights Coalition, an organization providing legal services to immigrant detainees in the Washington, DC area.
Michelle Rupp graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 2011. While in law school, she served as Editor in Chief of the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal and was Vice President of the school’s Election Law Society. She also interned with Project Vote, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Human Rights First, the Center for Applied Legal Studies, and AARP. Ms. Rupp holds Bachelor of Arts degrees in Political Science and History from Arizona State University, where she graduated summa cum laude.
Pat Selby joins us as the Election Administration Manager for Michigan. Before Project Vote, Pat was a solo practitioner, concentrating in prisoner civil rights. As a cooperating attorney with the ACLU, she helped challenge a ban on student canvassing in residential halls at the University of Michigan. During the 2008 election, she also worked in the legal boiler room for the Michigan Campaign for Change, assisting election observers. Pat is a 2006 graduate of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. Following graduation, she clerked for the Hon. Arthur J. Tarnow of the Federal District Court, Eastern District of Michigan. Prior to law school, she worked as an electrical engineer and technical manager in the chemical industry. Pat is also a member of her local school board, and active in her community and church.
Niyati Shah works as Election Counsel to Project Vote. As Election
Counsel, Ms. Shah litigates and advocates for compliance with the National
Voter Registration Act of 1993 across the country. Previously, Ms.
Shah worked for the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs
litigating against deceptive and misleading trade practices and at Legal
Services of Northwest Jersey as a family, consumer, and housing law attorney. Ms. Shah is licensed to practice law in
New York and New Jersey. She is a
graduate of Rutgers University School of Law – Camden and obtained her
undergraduate degree from American University.
Michael Slater came to Project Vote in 2004 with more than a decade’s experience in community, labor and faith-based organizing. As Deputy Director, Mr. Slater helped build Project Vote's Election Administration program, and led successful efforts to overturn restrictive voter registration laws in seven states, including the landmark Project Vote v. Blackwell case. Mr. Slater was promoted to Executive Director in 2008, and in the months leading up to the historic 2008 election supervised one of the largest and most successful voter registration efforts in the nation’s history. In the past two years Mr. Slater has overseen the dramatic growth of Project Vote’s Election Administration, Litigation, and Research programs, transforming the organization into one of the nation’s leading voting rights and advocacy organizations. Under his guidance, the Public Agency Voter Registration Project has taken a nationwide leadership role in enforcing the National Voter Registration Act, including major litigation victories in Ohio and Missouri to ensure those states are registering their low-income public assistance clients. Through the expanded Research Department, Mr. Slater has conceived and overseen the writing and release of dozens of policy papers and reports, including Representational Bias in the 2008 Electorate and The NVRA at Fifteen: A Report to Congress. Mr. Slater has contributed to the passage of positive election legislation in several states, authored or edited numerous articles and publications on election policy, and is frequently called upon to testify on election issues. He splits his time between Washington, D.C. and his home in Salem, Oregon.
Camille Wimbish joins Project Vote as the Election Administration Manager for Ohio. In this position, she coordinates the election protection activities throughout the state, including working to defeat adverse election legislation and identifying and resolving potential barriers to voting. Camille has directed voter protection activities in Ohio for two previous election cycles and has four years of experience as a litigation attorney in private practice. She earned a B.A. from Smith College and a J.D. from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.
Nicole Kovite Zeitler returned to Project Vote in 2008 as Election Counsel and Director of the Public Agency Voter Registration Program. As director, Ms. Zeitler manages Project Vote’s efforts to advocate for enforcement of Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 through technical assistance and litigation across the country. Ms. Zeitler has been instrumental in representing Project Vote as plaintiffs’ counsel in NVRA lawsuits in Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, and New Mexico, and in providing technical assistance to state officials in Colorado and New Jersey, resulting in comprehensive NVRA compliance plans in both those states.
Previously, Ms. Zeitler worked for Project Vote in 2004 as the Washington state Election Administration project manager, where she succeeded in helping to reverse an illegal citizenship checkbox requirement to registration, resulting in roughly 2,500 more registered voters in the historically tight election. Ms. Zeitler is an attorney licensed in Washington state, where she worked for Scheer & Zehnder LLP, a civil litigation defense firm, the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney, and most recently for the King County prosecutor’s office where she tried and won 12 jury trials. Prior to her work as an attorney, Ms. Zeitler was staff for the Unemployment Law Project in Seattle, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 925 in Seattle, and the Democratic National Committee in Washington, DC. Ms. Zeitler is a national member of The Order of the Barristers.
|
