message, please email Please help us protect Glassdoor by verifying that you're a After graduating law school, Lewis worked as the fellow in public interest and constitutional litigation for Gibbons P.C., a New Jersey-based law firm with offices in multiple states and Washington, D.C. 7 During her fellowship, Lewis participated in litigation dedicated to advancing a number of left-of-center causes. Miltrine Jenkins Barden has been voting since she was 18, since she marched in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and went to jail for three days for the right to cast a ballot. In addition, countless laws are currently being considered across the country that would create even more barriers around voter ID that will prevent Americans' voices from being heard at the ballot box. Now, state election officials must notify voters if their mail-in ballots are deemed invalid and give them opportunity to corrector curethe problem in time for their vote to be counted. . Would anyone feel more comfortable about the Voting Rights Lab knowing they wanted to help Green Bay, Wisconsin cure ballots in the Nov. 2020 general election? https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-lewis-64b290179/. Notably, the share of voters identified as people who already believe election misinformation improved the most after reading the affirmative messaging. 0000001567 00000 n All Rights Reserved. Voting Rights Lab Retweeted. But many states dont give voters that much time. In the run-up to the polls, voting rights groups have filed over a dozen lawsuits across the U.S. pushing states to adopt these cure systems. 4, Megan Lewis received her bachelors degree from Harvard University in 1995. Nearly 10% of registered voters with a disability do not have a valid photo ID. "The foundation of some of these [false] beliefs seems fairly fragile. trailer <<48DA1E5EC5264657908A1923EBDEAEB9>]/Prev 873568/XRefStm 1567>> startxref 0 %%EOF 1335 0 obj <>stream In what has essentially become an information war for the future of democracy, people driven by misinformation are acting on it to harass election workers and subvert the will of the voters. 11, In April 2013, Lewis joined Everytown for Gun Safety as its director of law and policy. Aydanos a proteger Glassdoor verificando que eres una persona real. 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20036, United States. excuses voor het ongemak. 0000023345 00000 n Governor Tom Wolf issued an executive order that broadened the list of state agencies at which. in order to work with Republicans on voting rights issues and to maintain a distance from the Democratic Partyaffiliated work of VRL [Voting Rights Lab]. Walker claimed that both Secure Democracy and the New Venture Fund had discriminated against female employees of color by paying them less than their white counterparts, denying them equal opportunity for advancement, and denying them equal access to benefits. According to Walker, Secure Democracy and Voting Rights lab leadership constantly reminded [Walker] of her racial identity, were obsessed with race and racial dynamics.29 Within the lawsuit, there were several examples of discrimination that directly involved Lewis, with one instance occurring in mid-2020 when Lewis and Voting Rights Lab co-founder Samantha Tarazi lied to several employees by claiming they were eligible for disability and life insurance even when they were not. I think there are real concerns about the quality of the process and exactly what signatures the state has on file to compare against, says Burden. Roughly 318,700 mail-in ballots were rejected in the 2016 general election, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and a recent NPR analysis found that more than 550,000 were rejected in this years presidential primaries. The salary will be $64k-$75k. This year alone, advocates have filed at least 18 lawsuits to force states to implement cure systems before the general election, according to a tally by Loyola Law School Professor Justin Levitt. 24 Lewis has also advocated for states to increase opportunities for a voter to cure an absentee ballot if that voter failed to correctly fill out the ballot in accordance with state rules. Randy Perez, program director, Voting Rights Lab Whites still make up the dominant share of the senior population in all these states: about 4 in 5 in Arizona; roughly 3 in 4 in Florida, North . hide caption. Many states have arcane technical requirements that arent communicated well, explains Charles Stewart, a professor of political science at MIT. And in a separate congressional hearing, lawmakers mulled how to make the presidential election certification process less vulnerable to partisan hijacking. PRESS RELEASE PR Newswire . 8, From 2007 through 2011, Lewis worked in the office of the New Jersey Attorney General. She later found out her ballot was one of thousands that were in limbo as the legal battle over North Carolinas cure process continued to play out. @VotingIsLocal. They range from a new law in Arizona that threatens election officials with felony prosecution if. This varies widely, depending on how strict a states vote-by-mail laws are. So Romo was stunned when, in the spring of 2020, the bipartisan Campaign Legal Center informed her that her vote had never been counted. hb```f`` @16NCE 0l-e5^b%Sk>V=@-\\0c`pi)]= 3mv'pf*T^3ULm=1MBi[wd6O$*Yn(QIWSuKD7vU8P*qb@4N0{;M/ rkfl>ICTfj2BZHMrw;2h~)IwAf*R}q Z9#zVe @+. Walker claimed that Secure Democracy had long worked as the 501(c)(4) wing of the Voting Rights Lab, which is a fiscally sponsored project of the . questo messaggio, invia un'email all'indirizzo In 2021 alone: While these laws can have devastating effects on voter participation across the board, they have a disproportionate impact on specific communities: "I have a deep appreciation of the challenges that already underrepresented communities face when trying to obtain the appropriate ID to vote and have a voice in our democracy," said Lauren Kunis, incoming ED/CEO of VoteRiders. While the threat of election subversion looms, despite the headlines, 2021 was not defined by voting restrictions in fact, voting rights advocates succeeded in advancing policies that expanded ballot access in red and blue states alike. an. As executive director of the Voting Rights Lab, Lewis has supported calls to implement universal mail-in-voting. "In 2022, state legislation creating a pathway to subvert the will of the people is on the rise," said Megan Lewis, executive director and co-founder of the Voting Rights Lab. She graduated from New York University School of Law in 1999. (Here is The Voting Rights Labs list of states with cure processes.). Req ID: 2333. DC government business records say Secure Democracy started in 2017 but is now dissolved. Their last report to DC government was in April 2020. Vice President, Operations & Chief of Staff, Senior Director, Operations & Human Resources. Most of lawsuits filed this year argue that denying voters the opportunity to correct problems with their ballots deprives them of their right to due process, especially in the instance of signature mismatch, which is often so subjective. But it's clear this "game" has massive stakes. The way voters are notified depends on what information the state has on file. Others only have voters physical addresses and send letters by mail notifying them of the issue. Lamentamos At least 31 states use signature matching to verify absentee ballots, per the Campaign Legal Center, meaning they compare the signature on a voters ballot to the signature the Board of Elections has on file or the signature on the absentee ballot request form. The Voting Rights Lab is a campaign hub designed to supercharge the fight against voter suppression and transform our voting systems. Heres what to know about correcting mail-in ballots in the upcoming election. Some signatures are old, and could have been taken 20 years ago when a person first registered to vote. Whether or not additional states adopt cure processes could determine if hundreds of thousands of ballots are counted this election. Murphy ended up curing his ballot by going in-person to the county elections office and signing an affidavit, but was alarmed it could have been disqualified. 0000010746 00000 n 0000004255 00000 n If I was in a different situation, which I know many voters are, I could see that process as being a lot more challenging and potentially not doable, she says. Thats what happened to 20-year-old Isabelle Halbe-Sauer, who voted for the first time in the 2018 Arizona midterms. Allison Riggs, the co-executive director and chief counsel for voting rights at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, says the impact of voter suppression could affect 100 voters in a given county, which could determine elections. https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-lewis-64b290179/, https://dailycaller.com/2017/05/11/major-gun-control-group-is-riven-by-leadership-dispute/, https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-10-13/signature-verification-rules-lawsuits. Her ballot was rejected when election officials ruled that the signature on her ballot didnt match the signature on her absentee ballot request form. Its unclear how much of this money might have ended up with Voting Rights Lab. Megan Lewis is a Principal at Kittleman & Associates based in Chicago, Illinois. A Letter from our Executive Director As we step back to take stock of the elections policies that advanced in the 2021 legislative sessions - and gear up for another history-making year ahead - I am awestruck However, the suit alleges that even though at least one white employee was given the option of disability benefits by being hired full-time, two non-white employees were reportedly not given that option. 30 One other example was Lewis criticizing Secure Democracy employees of color by comparing them to white VRL employees, whom she claimed were, getting strong favorable media stories, and told the Secure Democracy employees, they should be doing more work to get their issues in the media, 31 However, Walkers suit alleges that the favorable media stories Lewis alleged to, came from one of VRLs communications contractors who was paying reporters to write stories. 32. The associate will be monitoring news regarding voting rights issues and supporting the communications aspects of state campaigns. As an unprecedented number of voters turn to voting by mail amid the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more states are adopting notice and cure processes. Other professional experiences include teaching, research, and consulting on policy, equity and inclusion, and organizational development for nonprofits and educational entities. Fighting voter suppressionincluding automatic voter purges, cuts to early voting, and reduced polling hours. Fingerprints from Arabella Advisors dark money funds are hints they influence the flow of money and control the project, George Soros' Foundation to Promote Open Society provided $450K for "VoteShield" startup in 2018, which now closely monitors voter registration changes in 24 states, Corrected and updated, Nov. 22. We are so excited that Lauren will lead ourteam as we expandour work to make sure every eligible voter can confidently cast aballot that counts.". , Hayden Ludwig, Capital Research Center, Nov. 3, 2022. "Lauren'sin-depthunderstanding of voter registration and ID issues, along with her widespread relationships among partner organizations, makes heruniquely equipped for this role. 15 Tax records reveal that Lewis made over $1 million working for Everytown, with her annual compensation as executive vice president regularly exceeding $300,000. Voting Rights Lab - Career Page Thanks for visiting our Career Page. The organization offers an exhaustive combination of bilingual digital and Helpline resources and in-person services to voters including: Together with its network of nearly 6,000 volunteers and over 700 partner organizations, VoteRiders continues to ensure that eligible voters have the ID they need to vote with confidence, knowing they cannot be turned away; in the 2020 election cycle alone the organization provided direct assistance to nearly 1.5 million new voters, and reached millions more through their partner organizations and celebrity ambassadors. In January 2014, she became the advocacy groups executive vice president. https://vettingroom.org/2023/01/17/michael-farbiarz/, https://www.gibbonslaw.com/practices/gibbons-fellowship-practice, https://observer.com/2009/12/christie-to-nominate-dow-for-ag/, https://www.wsj.com/articles/consumer-agency-is-no-stranger-to-controversy-1511907774, https://disclosurespreview.house.gov/ld/ldxmlrelease/2016/Q4/300852740.xml, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/208802884/2014_12_EO%2F20-8802884_990O_201312, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/208802884/2015_12_EO%2F20-8802884_990O_201412, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/208802884/2016_12_EO%2F20-8802884_990O_201512, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/208802884/12_2017_prefixes_20-22%2F208802884_201612_990O_2017121915035061, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/us/politics/fact-check-parkland-gun-violence-mental-illness.html, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/no-there-havent-been-18-school-shooting-in-2018-that-number-is-flat-wrong/2018/02/15/65b6cf72-1264-11e8-8ea1-c1d91fcec3fe_story.html?utm_term=.fbc69c3760f5, https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/may/12/everytown-gun-safety/advocacy-group-overreaches-claim-nypd-shooting/, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/america-going-vote-mail-2020-changing-our-state-election-megan-lewis/, https://time.com/5900567/mail-in-ballot-mistakes/, https://dockets.justia.com/docket/district-of-columbia/dcdce/1:2022cv03312/248723, https://capitalresearch.org/article/breaking-arabella-aligned-groups-sued-for-racial-discrimination-violating-civil-rights-laws/, Secure Democracy

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voting rights lab executive director