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To contact any of these democracy experts, call Timothy Rusch at 212-389-1407 or email trusch@demos-usa.org.
Miles Rapoport has served as President of Demos since February 2001. From 1995-1999, Mr. Rapoport was the Secretary of State of Connecticut, and a leader of efforts for campaign finance, election reform, and expanding citizen participation. As Secretary, he released two unique reports on the State of Democracy in Connecticut. Prior to his election as Secretary of State, Mr. Rapoport served for ten years (1985-1994) in the Connecticut legislature. He was a leading expert on electoral reform and chaired the Government Administration and Elections Committee.
Mr. Rapoport also founded and served as Executive Director of DemocracyWorks, a Hartford-based group that works on democracy reforms from 1999-2001. In 1985, he founded Northeast Action, a leading political reform organization in New England, and was the Director of Connecticut Citizen Action Group. He has written on democracy issues, including broad agenda-setting articles in the American Prospect and other magazines.
Steven Carbó has 14 years of experience in advancing progressive civil rights, social justice, and community economic development policies at the federal, state and community levels. Before joining Demos, Steven had worked as Legislative Director for U.S. Representative Nydia Velazquez, Special Counsel on Environmental Justice for U.S. Representative Jose Serrano, and Legislative Staff Attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Over the years, he has helped shape federal and state policies and programs on voting rights, fair employment, education, environmental justice, economic development, and affordable housing. Steven's volunteer work includes service on the Board of Directors of the Jesse Smith Noyes Foundation. He holds a J.D. and B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Nick Williams is a Policy Analyst at Demos specializing in HAVA implementation and voting rights. Before joining Demos, Nick worked as an editor at Hippocrene Books for three years. He also sits on the coordinating council for Downtown for Democracy, a forward-thinking political action committee based in New York, where he is the senior research coordinator. He has a B.A. in Sociology and International Studies from the University of Denver.
Laleh Ispahani is the ACLU's Voting Rights Fellow. She directs an ACLU ex-felon voter education and mobilization campaign, and provides detailed guidance on strategy, as well as technical assistance and oversight, to ACLU affiliates engaged in felon re-enfranchisement work. Ispahani has authored numerous pieces on felony disfranchisement including Felon Disfranchisement Policies in the United States and Other Democracies, and recently published an article entitled "Is the Right to Vote a Criminal Matter?" for the Center for American Progress. Prior to the ACLU, Ispahani, a lawyer, was a member of the trial team in McConnell v. FEC, the defense of McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act, at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. Preceding that, she practiced commercial litigation in New York City. Ms. Ispahani was educated at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. (J.D. 1993) and Harvard College in Cambridge, MA (A.B. cum laude 1988).
Ari Weisbard joined Demos' Democracy Program in June 2004. He focuses on evaluating voting reforms for enhancing U.S. democracy. Ari has learned about the practice of democracy firsthand as a political organizer for America Coming Together in New Hampshire, for local campaigns in Massachusetts, and for Working Families Party in New York. He has conducted research for The Nation magazine and for his thesis on "Sustaining Participation in the Harvard Living Wage Campaign." Ari holds a bachelors degree in Social studies from Harvard University.
Ludovic Blain is the Associate Director of Demos' Democracy Program. He focuses on expanding voting rights, particularly ending felon disfranchisement, promoting election day registration, and dealing with recent election law changes. He has 15 years of advocacy, organizing, and communications experience, including a decade lobbying city and state legislatures for government reform, environmental justice, and consumer protection policies. He's on the Steering Committee of the national Right to Vote: Campaign to End Felon Disfranchisement. He's been featured in several books, including Loud and Clear in an Election Year, published in 2004. His work has been covered in The New York Times, NBC Nightly News and C-SPAN. He has a B.A. from City College of New York.
Alec Ewald teaches at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he is a doctoral candidate in political science. He is the author of an article in the Wisconsin Law Review, "Civil Death: The Ideological Paradox of Criminal Disenfranchisement Law in the United States," from which the Demos report Punishing at the Polls is adapted. He has also published work on the international dimensions of felony disenfranchisement, as well as on American elections and judicial selection.
Joseph "Jazz" Hayden is director of the NYC Unlock The Block: Release the Vote Campaign, a coalition of organizations which is seeking to extend the right to vote to individuals with felony convictions. Mr. Hayden is also the lead plaintiff in the class action lawsuit challenging felon disenfranchisement in New York State, Hayden v. Pataki, which he filed pro se and which is now being represented by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, The Community Service Society, and The Center For Law and Justice at Medgar Evers College. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Liberal Arts from SUNY New Paltz, and a Master's Degree in Professional Studies from the New York Theological Seminary. He is an authentic spokesperson for the voiceless population of prisoners, parolees, and the disenfranchised of this country. Mr. Hayden was born and raised in Harlem.
Marc Mauer is the Assistant Director of The Sentencing Project, a non-profit organization engaged in research and advocacy on criminal justice policy. Mr. Mauer has written extensively and testified before Congress and other legislative bodies. His critically acclaimed book, Race to Incarcerate, was named a semifinalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, and he is the co-editor of Invisible Punishment, a collection of essays that examine the social costs of incarceration. Mr. Mauer frequently lectures before a broad range of national and international audiences, and appears regularly on television and radio networks. Mr. Mauer is also the recipient of the Donald Cressey Award for contributions to criminal justice research and the Alfred Lindesmith Award for drug policy scholarship.
David Callahan is a Senior Fellow at Demos, where he has written research reports on issues of election reform, including voter fraud and election day registration. He is also author of six books -- most recently, The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead. This provocative look at values in America has been featured on numerous television and radio programs, and reviews or feature stories on The Cheating Culture have appeared in over 100 newspapers and magazines. David's articles -- including analyses of the role of values in the 2004 election -- have been published in such places as The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The American Prospect. He is a regular radio commentator for Marketplace and a frequent public speaker. David received his B.A. at Hampshire College and his Ph.D in Politics at Princeton University.
Lorraine C. Minnite has taught American and urban politics at Barnard College, Columbia University, since January 2000. Prior to that she was the Associate Director of the Center for Urban Research and Policy at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. Her research is concerned with issues of equality, social and racial justice, political conflict and institutional change. Dr. Minnite has consulted with various labor, advocacy, and governmental organizations, and political campaigns which relied on her expertise in public policy and demographic patterns in New York City. An experienced survey researcher, she has published on various aspects of political participation, voting behavior and urban politics, among other things. Currently, she is working on a book on the contemporary immigrant rights movement in the U.S.
Lucy Mayo directs Demos' 2004 NVRA Implementation Project. Prior to joining Demos in May 2004, Lucy worked in local government and in the non-profit sector. Most recently, Lucy was the Legislative Director for New York City Councilmember Christine C. Quinn. While with Councilmember Quinn, Lucy worked on several pieces of landmark legislation, such as the Smoke Free Air Act of 2002 and the Equal Benefits Bill, which requires companies that contract with New York City to provide domestic partnership benefits to their employees. Lucy holds a B.A. in public policy and community organizing from Hampshire College.
Doug Hess has worked for several leading national advocacy and research organizations over the past 12 years. He most recently was a Senior Policy Analyst at the Food Research and Action Center. Doug directed Project Vote's National Voter Registration Act work in the mid-1990s and has been directing its current work on NVRA compliance in 2004. He holds an M.A. in Policy Studies from Johns Hopkins University and is currently a Ph.D. student at the School of Public Policy & Public Administration at George Washington University.
Sarah Tobias is Senior Policy Analyst in Demos' Democracy Program and the editor of Democracy Dispatches. She is a co-author of Expanding the Vote: The Practice and Promise of Election Day Registration. The focus of her current work is on enriching and expanding democratic participation. Prior to joining Demos, Sarah worked as a consultant to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute, where she co-authored Family Policy: Issues Affecting Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Families (2002). A feminist theorist by training and inclination, her scholarly writings include "Toward a Feminist Ethic of War and Peace" in Terry Nardin (ed.), The Ethics of War And Peace (Princeton University Press, 1996), and "Several Steps Behind: Lesbian and Gay Adoption" in Sally Haslanger and Charlotte Witt (eds.), Adoption Matters: Feminist and Philosophical Essays (Cornell University Press, forthcoming). She has a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree from Cambridge University, England.
Publications
Placebo Ballots
Will "Fail-Safe" Provisional Voting Fail?
October 28, 2004
Demos' Ari Weisbard examines the practice of provisional balloting after the implementation of the Help America Vote Act.
Purged!
Will Eligible Voters Be Purged From Election Rolls?
October 27, 2004
Purged! provides an in-depth analysis of the confusing, disorganized and often partisan process used to "purge" voter rolls and deny eligible Americans the right to vote.
Divided Citizens
How Inequality Undermines Trust in America
May 1, 2004
An exploration of the importance of social trust in U.S. society and troubling ways in which rising economic inequality since the 1970s has helped to decrease trust between Americans.
Democracy Denied
The Racial History and Impact of Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States
February 26, 2004
This brief examines the relationship between criminal justice practices that disproportionately target people of color, and disenfranchisement laws that deprive citizens convicted of felonies of their right to vote.
Punishing at the Polls
The Case Against Disenfranchising Citizens With Felony Convictions
November 24, 2003
Political scientist Alec Ewald sheds new light on the fundamentally undemocratic nature of felony disenfranchisement laws. Tracing the history of these laws from ancient Europe to their racist application in the post Civil War U.S., Ewald concludes that felony disenfranchisement laws are in profound conflict with America's best ideals of fairness and traditions of democracy.
Securing the Vote
An Analysis of Election Fraud
April 14, 2003
An in-depth study of election fraud issues and the policy requirements of the Help America Vote Act.
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