The Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC) at Reed College launched a new research effort, the Stewards of Democracy Initiative (SDI), on July 27th, 2021. An inaugural webinar introducing SDI was attended by 77 election community stakeholders including academic researchers, state and local election officials, nonprofit representatives, election technology providers, and the media.”
SDI is a multi-pronged collaborative research effort of EVIC consisting of webinar conversations, a cross-sector book publication, and a research convening of election science-focused academic researchers, local election official practitioners, and other election community stakeholders.
The inaugural webinar, linked below, consisted of a lively and practical discussion between SDI academic researcher track leaders and local election officials on the following topics:
- Diversity in Election Administration: Path to the Profession
- The Voice of Local Election Officials in Election Reform
- Nonprofit Funding & Election Performance
Paul Gronke and the EVIC team began the discussion of the initiative, followed by three panels led by the SDI track leaders:
- Paul Manson of Reed College
- Bridgett King of Auburn University
- David Kimball of the University of Missouri, St. Louis
- Mara Suttmann-Lea of Connecticut College
- Lia Merivaki of Mississippi State University
- Christian Grose of the University of Southern California
Panel participants included the following local election officials:
- Lance Gough, former Executive Director of the Chicago Board of Elections
- Brianna Lennon, County Clerk of Boone County, Missouri
- Remi Garza, Elections Administrator for Cameron County, Texas
Heather Creek of the Democracy Fund, an SDI sponsor, also participated in this event.
SDI is made possible by the generous support of the Democracy Fund, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Data and Science Lab, and the University of Southern California Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy.
To view the agenda and list of participants, click here. If you have any questions or are interested in getting involved in the initiative, please contact EVIC’s program management consultant, Grace Gordon, at ggordon@reed.edu.
