National Office Staff
Rob Richie, Executive Director
rr[at] fairvote.org
An expert on international and domestic elections and electoral reform, Rob Richie has directed FairVote since its founding in 1992. Among his activities at FairVote, Richie has:
- been a frequent source for print, radio and television journalists, including as a guest on C-SPAN, NBC News, CNN, FOX, MSNBC and NPR's Talk of the Nation, All things Considered, To the Point and Fresh Air;
- published commentary in such publications as New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Roll Call, Nation, National Civic Review, Boston Review, Christian Science Monitor and Legal Times;* co-authored two books,Every Vote Equal (2006) and Whose Votes Count (2001) and had his writings appear in seven other books;
- Spoken to scores of organizations, including at the annual conventions of the American Political Science Association, National Association of Counties, National Association of Secretaries of state, Unitarian Universalists and National Conference of State Legislatures and to the Voting Section of the U. S. Department of Justice, the Lincoln Day dinners of the Alaska Republican Party in Juneau and Anchorage and several groups of foreign dignitaries through the United States Information Agency;
- Worked with congressional and state legislative staff in writing numerous pieces of legislation;
- Testified in special sessions before charter commissions in cities in New York, Florida, Ohio, Texas and Michigan and before state legislative committees in Alaska, Vermont, Virginia and Washington;
- Helped organize eight well-attended national conferences on electoral system reform and worked with hundreds of state reformers supporting fair election methods;
- Toured New Zealand at the invitation of electoral reformers during a successful referendum campaign in that country in 1993 to adopt a proportional voting system; and
- edited FairVote's publications, such as its bi-annual analyses of congressional elections that have received prominent news coverage around the nation.
Born in Washington, D.C. in 1962, Richie graduated from Haverford College with a B.A. in philosophy in 1987. Before co-founding FairVote and becoming its director in 1992, he worked for three winning congressional campaigns in Washington state and for non-profit organizations in Washington and the District of Columbia. He is married to Cynthia Terrell and is the father of three children: Savanna, Lucas and Rebecca.
You can reach Rob Richie at: rr [at] fairvote.org. He regularly publishes content on the FairVote Blog.
Cynthia Terrell, Member Relations
ct [at] fairvote.org
Cynthia Terrell is a founder of FairVote and has been a board member of several charitable organizations, including the American Friends Service Committee.
Terrell has worked in the area of voting system reform in this country and abroad, traveling in 1993 to New Zealand to support that country's successful referendum to adopt a proportional voting system. She also directed the research for several reports produced by FairVote, including analyses of the 1994 and 1996 congressional elections and the 1992 presidential elections.
Before helping to found FairVote, Terrell worked extensively as a political consultant around the country, working as campaign manager and field director for campaigns for the U.S. President, U.S. House and U.S. Senate, for governor and for state and city-wide initiative efforts. Among these campaigns were a proposed equal rights amendment in 1992 to the Iowa state constitution, the 1992 presidential campaign of Sen. Tom Harkin, Douglas Wilder's 1989 gubernatorial victory in Virginia and former Congresswoman Jolene Unsoeld's congressional campaign in 1990. Terrell also researched the state initiative process for the Fund for the Feminist Majority.
Terrell is a mother of three children and active in civic affairs in Takoma Park, Maryland. She graduated with a B.A. in political science from Swarthmore College in 1986.
FairVote Fellows
Mollie Hailey | Mhailey [at] FairVote.org
Mollie Hailey is a Legal Fellow. She graduated from the George Washington University Law School in 2012.
Patricia Hart | Hart [at] FairVote.org
Patricia Hart is FairVote's Wohlford Fellow on women and politics, which is a new advocacy position that focuses on women's representation.
Patricia graduated in 2012 from Eastern Kentucky University, where she studied political science. While in school, Patricia served as a congressional intern and participated in over eight political campaigns on the local, state and national level. She also led several activist projects directed at fostering equality despite sexual orientation and gender.
As the Director of Feminists for Change, an organization that seeks to end gender discrimination, Patricia led a women's health campaign, which engaged elected officials in important issues such as the HPV mandate and cervical cancer screenings. While acting as the Public Relations Director of The Alphabet Center, an LGBT resource center, she was awarded a grant to run The State of the Gay Campaign, which worked to end discrimination in Kentucky's workplaces through awareness, education, affirmation and activism. After graduation, Patricia worked as a sustainability intern for Berea College.
Lizz Hudler | Hudler [at] FairVote.org
Lizz Hudler is an Advocacy Fellow at FairVote. Originally from Ithaca (NY), Lizz moved to Montreal, Quebec to pursue her undergraduate studies at McGill University. She completed her Bachelor degree in political science and African studies with Honors in 2012.
While at McGill, Lizz interned with the McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy and The South African History Project Online. In 2011, she received the Tania Zouikin Arts Internship Award in support of her internship at Ghana’s Center for Democratic Development. She is interested in how people communicate and process political ideas.
Andrea Levien | ALevien [at] FairVote.org
Andrea Levien is a Research Fellow focused on presidential elections and the Electoral College.
Andrea graduated from Yale in 2012 with a B.A. in political science. Her senior thesis reviewed scholarship on the effects of the Electoral College on minority voting power. At Yale, she worked with the Yale College Democrats' elections and lobbying committees, registering voters and lobbying in Hartford for the repeal of the death penalty and the passage of the Connecticut DREAM Act. She spent five semesters with the Roosevelt Institute, a student think tank, performing research on the economic effects of local programs such as the Elm City ID Card and the New Haven Promise Program, and ultimately becoming co-head of the Center for Economic Development in 2011. During her summers, she interned at Human Rights First, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, and the Hotline for Migrant Workers in Tel Aviv.
Andrew Spencer | DSpencer [at] FairVote.org
Andrew "Drew" Spencer is a Legal Fellow. He graduated from the University of Arizona law school in 2012. While in law school, Drew specialized in election law and public interest issues. He created an independent study in Election Law as well as one in Nonprofit Organizations. He served as Executive Note Editor for the Arizona Law Review, and published an article on public financing of elections both in the Arizona Law Review and in Arizona Attorney Magazine. He also served as treasurer and founding member of the University of Arizona chapter of the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund. He graduated in the top 20% of his class.
Andrew received a B.A. in philosophy and a B.S. in psychology at the University of Arizona in 2006.
Devin McCarthy | DMccarthy [at] FairVote.org
Devin McCarthy is a Research Fellow at FairVote, focusing on proportional representation and international elections.
He is a recent graduate of Georgetown University, where he majored in history and government. As part of the Government Honors Program, he completed a thesis studying U.S. policy on recognizing new European states in 1919 and 1991. During his senior year at Georgetown, Devin worked as a research assistant at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He has also interned at non-profit organizations including the Center for International Policy and the Forum 2000 foundation in Prague, Czech Republic.
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