About Us
ABOUT THE National Election Defense Coalition
The National Election Defense Coalition (NEDC) began our work in 2013. Our mission is to build a bipartisan movement to secure the nation’s vulnerable voting systems from manipulation and fraud, and to protect every American’s right to have their vote counted.
We bring together national NGOs with experts in cybersecurity and elections administration, policymakers, intelligence community advisors, and concerned citizens, to build consensus on a comprehensive, cost-effective plan to protect the vote in the coming 2020 elections and beyond.
At a time of extreme partisan polarization, we believe that the issue of election security is a rare area of agreement. Our allies include civil rights advocates, libertarians and liberals, national security conservatives and many members of the tech and elections community.
Our partners and allies range from trusted research institutions to leading advocacy organizations, and from progressive public interest groups to conservative national security organizations.
Due to concerns consistently voiced by partisan advocates, to be clear, the National Election Defense does not implicitly endorse any of the work of our allies on the right or left, beyond our shared bipartisan efforts promoting secure elections.
List of NEDC allies alphabetically:
Americans for Tax Reform
The Brennan Center for Justice
The Center on National Security at Fordham Law School
Coalition for Good Governance
Common Cause
Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
Michigan Election Reform Alliance (MERA)
NAACP
OSET Institute
Public Citizen
Project on Government Oversight
Protect Democracy
Rainbow Push (Rev Jesse Jackson
Represent Us
R Street
Securing Democracy
Standup America
Standup Republic
Transformative Justice Coalition
Verified Voting
OUR Management TEAM and contracted advisors
Ben Ptashnik is President of NEDC. He is a former Vermont State Senator, serving on the Vermont Senate Government Operations Committee, where he sponsored and passed Vermont's Clean Elections Act; reform aimed at reducing the influence of Money in Politics and creating public funding of elections for state-wide offices. He served on the Senate Health and Welfare Committee as Co-Chair, as well as on Commerce and Agriculture Committees, and he was appointed to the Vermont Judicial Nominating Committee. Ptashnik was also founder of EarthRight Institute, and Chairman of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, Vermont’s largest environmental and government watchdog organization.
Victoria Collier serves as Executive Director of NEDC, and Communications Director. She is the designer and web master of electiondefense.org, electiondefenseaction.org, and creativeartscouncil.org. Collier has authored and edited op-ed and feature stories on election security for various publications. Her cover story in the November, 2012 issue of Harper’s Magazine “How to Rig an Election,” spearheaded the formation of the National Election Defense Coalition. She has been a public speaker on election issues for over twenty years, appearing on numerous radio stations on talk shows spanning the political spectrum, including ABC, NPR, and Pacifica, and was a guest lecturer at the Institute for Policy Studies. Collier is the lead grant writer for all NEDC projects.
Michael Ostrolenk is the Senior Cyber Security Advisor to the NEDC. He is a trans-partisan and Libertarian- conservative leader and policymaker with a track record of building successful left-right coalitions in Washington in fields ranging from healthcare to the Pentagon budget. Ostrolenk has organized and coordinates our NEDC’s bipartisan, coalition to make sure that election security is not perceived as a partisan issue. He manages NEDC’s conservative conference calls, press conferences, op-eds and letters, and coordinates legislative efforts with GOP members of Congress.
Justin Talbot-Zorn is NEDC Election Integrity Senior Legislative and Policy Advisor. Justin Zorn is a former Legislative Director to three Democrats in Congress, including the former Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. He is a Truman National Security Fellow and a regular contributor to the Washington Post, Atlantic, The Guardian, Harvard Business Review, Time, Huffington Post, CNN.com and Wire. He earned two graduate degrees focusing on international relations, political communications, and public policy at Oxford University and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Ben Ptashnik, Chairman, Co-Founder
Ben Ptashnik is a life long human rights, social justice and environmental activist, philanthropist, and a former two term Vermont State Senator where he promulgated historic legislation against money in politics. He is a co-Founder of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR), and served for 22 years as Chair and Board member of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.
As an entrepreneur, Ptashnik was the founder and CEO of Via Vermont, an international import export business that conducted operations in eight countries and was sold to Fortune 500 Stanley Home Products in 1991, after which he managed the company for Stanley for 4 years. Ptashnik then became a philanthropist and founded the Stopnitz Fund, a donor directed family fund, named after the home village of his parents, who are Holocaust survivors. The Stopnitz Fund supported hundreds of social justice and environmental projects. He first ran for the Vt Senate in 1996.
In 2001, Ptashnik became a pioneer in the Mexican renewable energy industry by founding the first incorporated solar energy company in Mexico. The Stopnitz Fund underwrote a study of the Mexican electric grid which was instrumental in legislation that created National Net Metering, which allows all home owners and small businesses in Mexico to interconnect to the Mexican national power grid (CFE) and sell solar power to that grid .
Victoria Collier, Sec/Treasurer, Co-Founder
Victoria Collier is a writer and life long social justice and environmental organizer, with over 20 years of NGO experience in fundraising and development, grant writing, administration and management, grassroots organizing, website and graphic design.
Collier’s feature cover story in Harper’s Magazine “How to Rig an Election,” spearheaded the formation of the National Election Defense Coalition in 2013. Collier co-founded NEDC with the explicit vision of a non-partisan movement unified around the core principles of integrity of democratic elections. She defends the rights of every voter to cast a ballot, and to have their ballot counted accurately, regardless of party affiliation.
Collier’s work has included founding, managing and directing multiple community food security and Permaculture projects in New Mexico, working with underserved communities, schools, and the Taos Pueblo. Currently she is co-founder and co-director of Tikkun Eco Center, a reforestation and ecological sustainability project in Central Mexico dedicated to Permaculture, water conservation, ecosystem regeneration, organic agriculture and reforestation.
Barbara R Arnwine, Esq
Barbara R. Arnwine, president and founder of Transformative Justice Coalition, is internationally renowned for contributions on critical justice issues including the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1991 and the 2006 reauthorization of provisions of the Voting Rights Act. She was the head of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law from 1989 until June of 2015 and holds the honorific title of President Emeritus. She is the board vice-chair of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and serves on the board of directors of MomsRising and Independent Sector.
Arnwine’s work also includes women’s rights, immigrant rights, judicial diversity, criminal justice reform, racial profiling, health care disparities and LBGTQ rights. A prominent leader in the civil and human rights community, she continues to fight for the preservation of affirmative action and diversity programs. She has received numerous national, regional, and local awards. In 2015, Arnwine received the prestigious Charles Hamilton Houston Medallion award, along with co-honoree Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She received the Vince Monroe Townsend, Jr., Legends Award and the Women Lawyers Division’s Walking the Walk: Women Lawyers Still Making It Happen Award in 2014.
In 2013, she received the Feminist Majority Foundation’s Fearless Trailblazer Award and during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s (CBCF) 2013 Annual Legislative Conference, the CBCF, the women members of the CBCF and the Sojourner Truth Legacy Project awarded Ms. Arnwine with the Sojourner Truth, Woman of Truth award. In May 2013, she received the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights’ coveted Hubert H. Humphrey Civil and Human Rights Award and, in March 2013, Trice Edney Communications, LLC honored her with its inaugural Stateswoman for Justice award.
Arnwine is a graduate of Scripps College and Duke University School of Law.
Jeff Wolfe
Jeff Wolfe is Chairman of GroSolar, and former Chair of the Distributed Generation Division of the Solar Energy Industries Association (the association representing the US Solar Energy Industry), and member of the Union of Concerned Scientists National Advisory Board. He is a recognized leader in grid transformation and creating the US solar photovoltaic industry. He has performed extensive consulting on solar and utility strategy, policy, regulation, programs, product development, and market entry and development, with work in North Americas and Africa.
A serial entrepreneur with broad experience and success, Jeff steered Shell Connected Energy into current strategy, created new strategic direction for Just Energy in commercial electricity sales, founded and grew groSolar, a groundbreaking national solar energy residential/commercial EPC and product distribution company (now "EDF Renewables Distributed Solutions"). Wolfe is now leading the Electrification of Transportation and massive grid transformation.
Wolfe brings to NEDC strong experience in business development, creating & managing strategy, fundraising, engineering, marketing, operations, & policy activities.
Reverend Rodney Sadler
The Reverend Rodney Sadler is Associate Professor of Bible at Union Presbyterian Seminary, Associate Pastor of Mount Carmel Baptist Church, and member of the Executive Committee of the North Carolina NAACP. Dr. Sadler served as a visiting lecturer and interim co-director of the Office of Black Church Studies at Duke Divinity School in Durham, NC, and was an associate minister in Durham, NC.
Rev. Sadler’s teaching experience includes courses in biblical languages, Old and New Testament interpretation, wisdom literature in the Bible, the history and religion of ancient Israel, and African American biblical interpretation. His first authored book, Can A Cushite Change His Skin? An Examination of Race, Ethnicity, and Othering in the Hebrew Bible, was published in 2005. He frequently lectures within the church and community on Race in the Bible, African American Biblical Interpretation, the Image of Jesus, Biblical Archaeology, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. He was the managing editor of the African American Devotional Bible.
Jan BenDor
BenDor is a county elections administrator and a founding member of the Michigan Election Reform Alliance (MERA). Its mission is to ensure "the realization of election processes that consistently uphold the principles of democracy to ensure the confidence of voters and maximize representation of all citizens of the United States of America."
BenDor is currently the MERA statewide coordinator and grants chair, and the election specialist for the Dearborn-based political advocacy group Michigan Rising. As the Operations Manager for the Eastern Michigan University Career Services Center, BenDor was involved in the United Auto Workers-Technical Office Professionals Local 1976 in the 1980s and early 1990s, serving as vice president of the local.
Nancy Price
Nancy Price is a member of the Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom’s Earth Democracy Committee and writes for WILPF’s Peace & Freedom magazine. She is Co-chair of the Alliance for Democracy working to build a just society with a sustainable and equitable economy. She edits and writes for AfD’s magazine, most recent issue titled, The People’s Vote Must Count. She is a founding member of Move to Amend, is on the board of the Liberty Tree Foundation, and the Advisory Council of California Trade Justice Coalition.
Board of ADVISORS
Alex Halderman – Professor of Computer Science at the University of Michigan and expert witness on cybersecurity and elections for the US Senate Intelligence Committee.
Dr. Virginia Martin, Columbia County, NY Commissioner of Elections
Jason Smith, Election Integrity advocate, Director of documentary I Voted?
Kirstin Mueller, election security chair, League of Women Voters Washington
Carol Chumney, director, Shelby County Advocates for Valid Elections, an attorney, former TN state legislator and Memphis City Councilwoman.
Kammi Foote, Inyo County, CA Registrar of Voters
Prof. Rich DeMillo, Distinguished Professor of Computing and Professor of Management at the Georgia Institute of Technology, former Chief Technology Officer for Hewlett-Packard
Prof. Duncan Buell, Computer Science professor, University of South Carolina, member of the Board of Elections, Richland County, SC