Advisors and other friends
Advisory Committee
Our advisory committee includes some of the smartest people we know, who can help us think about aspects of elections outside of our expertise.
Norelys R. Consuegra
Deputy Director of Elections for Rhode Island
Norelys, a native Rhode Islander, is Deputy Director of Elections for RI Secretary of State Nellie M. Gorbea. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1996 and completed her master’s degree in International Relations from Salve Regina University in 2012. Prior to her work in elections, she worked for US Senator Jack Reed, as a Senate Aide for 20 years. Norelys is the recipient of the Ralph Gabellieri Service Award by Goodwill Industries of Rhode Island, has been recognized as a Diversity Ambassador by the State of Rhode Island, was awarded the Extraordinary Women Award for community work, received recognition from RI Latino Public Radio, the National Archives and Records Administration and Telemundo Providence for her collaborating work in the community, among other community recognition. She has received numerous commendation letters from Rhode Islanders thanking her for her service and assistance.
In addition to her full-time employment, she is an Adjunct Professor in the Public Administration Program at University College at Roger Williams University. She has been very involved in community service as a member of the Rhode Island Latino Civic Fund, serving as Program Coordinator for the RI Latina Leadership Institute (LLI), Secretary for the Pawtucket Youth Soccer Association, among volunteering with many Rhode Island organizations. Her most recent appointments are as an Advisor with the Center for Technology & Civic Life (CTCL) and with the Center for Civic Design (CCD). She is an avid advocate for communities of color, the immigrant community, the LGBTQ community and enjoys teaching others about the importance of civic engagement. She makes her home in Johnston with her husband Salvador and three sons, Gabriel (18), Ashten (9) and Tristen (2).
Charlotte Levitt has over 15 years of experience in external-facing roles across the public, nonprofit, and private sectors. She is currently Global Director of Marketing & Communications at BLab, leading the BCorp movement and transforming the global economy to benefit all people, communities, and the planet.
Charlotte previously served as Vice President for Strategy and Communications with Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit civic organization and Director of Marketing and Digital Communications at the New York City Campaign Finance Board,
Joseph Lorenzo Hall
Senior VP, Strong Internet, Internet Society
Joseph Lorenzo Hall is the Senior Vice President for a Strong Internet at the Internet Society (ISOC), a global non-profit organization dedicated to an open, globally-connected, secure, and trustworthy Internet for everyone. Hall leads ISOC’s Strong Internet portfolio and provides substantive technical and policy expertise to ISOC’s programs.
Prior to joining ISOC in 2019, Hall was the Chief Technologist and Director of the Internet Architecture project at the Center for Democracy & Technology. He holds master’s degrees in astrophysics and information systems from UC Berkeley and was a founding member of the National Science Foundation’s ACCURATE Center (A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable and Transparent Elections).
Hall has served as an expert on independent teams invited by the States of California, Ohio and Maryland to analyze legal, privacy, security, usability and economic aspects of voting systems. Hall is the Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the California Voter Foundation, a member of the Board of Directors of the Verified Voting Foundation and a member of technical advisory boards to the Los Angeles County’s Open Technology Advisory Group, the Electronic Registration Information Center, TechCongress, and VotingWorks. In 2012, Hall received the John Gideon Memorial Award from the Election Verification Network for contributions to election verification. In 2017, Hall was part of a team that received the Researcher Award at the 2017 O’Reilly Security Defender Awards in recognition of the team’s dedication and innovative contributions to election security for organizing the first Voting Machine Hacking Village at DEFCON 25.
Publications and Projects
Ricky Hatch, CPA, CPO
Weber County Clerk/Auditor (Utah)
Ricky is the County Clerk/Auditor for Weber County, Utah. After graduating with honors from Brigham Young University with a Master’s degree in Accounting, he worked as an information systems auditor and consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Los Angeles and Warsaw, Poland. He worked as a business analyst and project manager in Germany, and Boston. In 2002, he established, ran, and taught at a private K-12 school in Ogden, Utah, later becoming CFO and COO of a chain of private schools throughout the western U.S.
In 2003, Ricky decided to be more involved in government than just as an informed voter and has served in various capacities ever since, eventually being elected as County Clerk/Auditor in 2010. He was honored by his peers as Utah’s County Clerk of the Year in 2015 and County Auditor of the Year in 2013 and 2017. His team has garnered awards in elections innovation and service from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), The Election Center, and the International Association of Government Officials (iGO)
He is a founding member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and chairs its Communications working group. He has testified twice before Congress regarding elections. He serves on the Board of Advisors for the EAC and the Center for Tech and Civic Life. He served as President of the Utah Association of Counties and currently chairs the Utah Clerk’s Legislative Committee. He served as the Election Officials Division Director for iGO and chairs the Elections Subcommittee for the National Association of Counties.
Ricky has a wonderful wife, five fantastic children, and three cute-as-a-button grandchildren.
Charlotte Levitt
B Lab
Charlotte Levitt has over 15 years of experience in external-facing roles across the public, nonprofit, and private sectors. She is currently Global Director of Marketing & Communications at BLab, leading the BCorp movement and transforming the global economy to benefit all people, communities, and the planet.
Charlotte previously served as Vice President for Strategy and Communications with Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit civic organization and Director of Marketing and Digital Communications at the New York City Campaign Finance Board, where she led the team that published the city’s official Voter Guide and oversaw multilingual campaigns to educate and engage the city’s 5 million voters. During her tenure, the agency launched an award-winning website (www.nycvotes.org) and a citywide education campaign for Ranked Choice Voting; over 85% of voters ranked candidates on their ballot in the first election following the campaign.
Prior to her work in public service, Charlotte held marketing and communications roles with cultural and education nonprofits, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Columbia University, Oberlin College, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. She also worked as a consultant for Strategy&, PwC’s strategy consulting practice, serving clients in education and consumer products. She started her career as a classically trained singer with a bachelor’s degree from New England Conservatory. Charlotte earned her MBA from Columbia Business School and is an alumna of Coro Leadership New York. She lives in New York City, where she is a regular voter, lifelong learner, and avid theater-goer
Whitney May
Center for Technology and Civic Life
Whitney May is Co-founder and Director of Government Services at the Center for Technology and Civic Life. At CTCL she leads a team that’s building the best professional development network for election officials who want to learn new ways to engage the public and keep up with changing technology. To date, her team has trained thousands of election officials on critical topics that include election website best practices and cybersecurity.
Whitney first caught the election bug in 2007 when she served the Durham County Board of Elections in North Carolina. She was responsible for recruiting, training, and managing hundreds of poll workers. Then, in 2012 she moved to Washington, D.C. to join the Voting Information Project, helping states partner with technology companies to connect millions of U.S. voters with official election information like polling place locations.
Whitney lives in Chicago where she’s a voter and an election judge.
Publications and projects
- ElectionTools.org – a civic engagement toolkit for election officials
- Tech Tutorials – Step-by-step guides on simple technology to better serve voters, candidates, and poll workers
Jennifer Morrell
Chief Executive Officer and co-founder, The Elections Group
Jennifer Morrell is the CEO and Co-Founder of The Elections Group, where she creates professional resources for elections officials and consults on election administration and auditing. A nationally recognized expert on election audits – specifically, Risk-Limiting Audits (RLA) – Morrell has successfully overseen RLA pilot programs in several states and authored a series on election audits, titled “Knowing It’s Right.” She serves as a subject matter expert and advisory board member for a number of national organizations. Morrell is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and was an elections official in Utah and Colorado. She is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs and completed a Master of Arts in Management at Webster University.
Publications and projects
Astrid M. Ochoa
Ochoa Consulting Partners
Astrid M. Ochoa is owner and Principal of Ochoa Consulting Partners. She is an experienced professional in public affairs, democracy work, and network building. Astrid is the former Executive Director of Future of California Elections and previous Director of State Election Policy and Redistricting at NALEO Educational Fund.
Astrid serves on the California Secretary of State’s Voter’s Choice Act Taskforce, the Board of Directors for the League of Women Voters of California, the Center for Civic Design Advisory Committee, and the National Advisory Committee for the Center for Inclusive Democracy, USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. She is former Co-Chair of the California Language Accessibility Advisory Committee and past member of the California Secretary of State November 2020 Taskforce.
Astrid holds a master’s degree in public affairs and a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations and minor in French language from Pomona College.
Christopher Patten
The Lab at OPM
Christopher is currently a Human Innovation Fellow with the Lab at OPM. There, he works with agencies across the federal government to reframe complex problems and find ways to act on them. Previously, he was a design researcher with the Center for Civic Design.
In all his work, he is focused on translating design methodologies for use by government and non-profit stakeholders. Whether he’s facilitating co-creation workshops or debating design thinking, he brings a critical approach to his role as a designer working in non-design settings. His work has spanned the fields of elections, policy, education, and transportation. His engagements have included The World Bank, Ford Motor Company Fund, Ford Smart Mobility, the Christopher Park Alliance, and the New York City Parks Department. Christopher began his design career as a landscape architect in Milan working for Salone del Mobile design week, where he created roof gardens and temporary installations for both civic and private spaces. There, he was exposed to co-creation methods and service design methodologies, which became the focus for his career.
Publications and Projects:
Sam Novey
Chief Strategist, University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement
Sam Novey is a Baltimore-based civic entrepreneur building diverse and long-lasting coalitions focused on expanding civic engagement at both the local and national level. He is the Chief Strategist at the University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement. He is a co-founder of the Students Learn Student Vote Coalition, Maryland Civics Education Coalition, and the Baltimore Votes Coalition among other civic initiatives. He also serves as a board member for the Baltimore City Board of Elections.
Tammy Patrick
Chief Executive Officer for Programs, The Election Center
Tammy Patrick, CERA, is the Chief Executive Officer for Programs at the Election Center, the National Association of Election Officials. Tammy Patrick has been working in the election administration space since 2003 – most recently as the Senior Advisor to the Elections Program at Democracy Fund. Focusing on modern elections, Tammy works to foster a voter-centric elections system and support election officials across the country. In 2013 she was selected by President Obama to serve as a commissioner on the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, which led to a position at the Bipartisan Policy Center to further the work of the PCEA. Prior to that, she was the Federal Compliance Officer for Maricopa County Elections Department for eleven years.
She has testified on election administration policies multiple times in the United States Senate and House of Representatives, and numerous state legislatures on behalf of members of both parties. She has been an active member of the Election Center’s Legislative and Postal committees, representing the organization to the United States Postal Service’s Mailers Technical Advisory Committee for over a decade. She elevates the election official perspective in the media and by serving as a member of numerous boards of advisors and steering committees.
She received her CERA certification in 2007 from Auburn University and the Election Center and was honored to be inducted into their Hall of Fame in 2022. She has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Policy since 2016.
Publications and projects
Ginny Redish
Plain language and usability expert
Janice (Ginny) Redish is a consultant and expert in plain language and usability.
In the 1980s, she led an interdisciplinary team that brought plain language to many government documents – forms, regulations, letters, and notices. When computers started to appear on everyone’s desks, Ginny’s team transformed system-oriented user manuals into conversational, task-oriented information. Dana Chisnell was part of that team.
Ginny’s forte is bringing together research and practice. For example, she and Dana did an extensive research project for AARP from which they developed guidelines for writing and designing for older adults.
Whitney Quesenbery introduced Ginny to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) group working on the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines. Ginny then did several studies for NIST about voting, including a major project (with Dana) showing the importance of plain language in ballots.
Ginny has been called the “mother of usability” for her pioneering work in introducing many of the concepts and methods the Center for Civic Design uses in their work: field research to understand how people go through a process, plain language guidelines for assessing materials, and usability testing – watching and listening as people try out a developing product or draft document.
Ginny earned her bachelor’s degree at Bryn Mawr College and holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Harvard University.
Publications and projects
Advisory groups we serve on
Because we love collaborating with other groups doing great civic work, we have proudly served on formal and informal advisory groups. We currently serve on:
Past assignments include:
- Bridge Alliance Leadership Council
- Center for Plain Language
- EAC’s Technical Guidelines Development Committee
- Los Angeles County’s Voting Systems for All People (VSAP)
- National Vote at Home Institute
- Participatory Budgeting Project
- Rosenfeld Media
- San Francisco Ballot Simplification Committee
- The Access Board’s TEITAC updating Section 508
- U.S. Vote Foundation
- Usability in Civic Life
- UXPA – User Experience Professionals Association
- Vote.org
- We Can Vote
About Center for Civic Design
