The VoteAmerica team

Bering Edwards
Intern

Bering Edwards is a senior at Brown University majoring in Political Science and Education. He has worked previously as a Summer Teaching Fellow, focused on civics education for middle school students. He also served as a Legislative Intern in the Rhode Island State House. Currently, he is writing a thesis highlighting the differences between elected and appointed State Boards of Education.

Brenna Cully
Director of Mobilization (she/her/hers)

Brenna Cully is the Director of Mobilization at VoteAmerica. She has extensive organizing experience and a love for voting. She has overseen digital organizing programs for dozens of races up and down the ballot as well as Advocacy and Non-Profit organizations. Brenna spent the last three years as the Director of Customer Experience at Prompt.io, a political texting platform. When not working, she spends her time cooking, reading books, and hanging out with menagerie of pets in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

Colette Kessler
Senior Advisor (she/her/hers)

Colette Kessler is a Senior Advisor at VoteAmerica. As the founding director of Electionday.org (2018), she mobilized thousands of companies to offer paid voting leave, establishing new standards in corporate civic responsibility. She also built and led the Strategic Partnerships department at Vote.org (2016), driving a multitude of initiatives to make voting easier and more equitable. Colette’s work has been recognized in The Washington Post, Pew Research, and The Chicago Tribune.

Debra Cleaver
Founder & Chief Executive Officer (she/her/hers)

Debra Cleaver has been working at the intersection of technology and democracy since 2004. She is a serial founder whose organizations include FutureVoter (2022), VoteAmerica (2020), ElectionDay.org (2018), Vote.org (2016), Long Distance Voter (2008), and Swing the State (2004). Debra is an alum of Pomona College and Y Combinator, and a former Draper Richards Kaplan Fellow for Social Entrepreneurship.  She speaks frequently on issues impacting voter turnout, with appearances at SXSW, Harvard Law, the Harvard School of Government, and University of Michigan. Debra’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, C-SPAN, WIRED, Bloomberg, The BBC, Forbes, and more. When she’s not working, Debra is probably sleeping, since she has learned the hard way that her “passion projects” have a way of turning into national organizations.

Emily Behlmann
Senior Software Engineer (she/her/hers)

Emily Behlmann is a Senior Software Engineer at VoteAmerica. Engineering is a second career for Emily, who started her working life as a journalist covering education, politics, and business in Kansas. She has worked in software development and architecture for about eight years, mostly focused on the advertising and fintech industries. Now at VoteAmerica, she’s glad to be able to apply her technical skills to make it as easy as possible for citizens to engage with their democracy. Outside work, Emily can usually be found reading mysteries or camping with her wife, Stephanie, and their hounds, Rose and Cobb.

Emma Kraus
Operations and Program Manager (she/her/hers)

Emma first got involved in politics through the Hillary for America campaign, working as an Organizer in her Ohio hometown. Since then, Emma has worked for a series of political campaigns and organizations including the Texas Democratic Party and Nevada State Democratic Party. She is a graduate of Syracuse University with a degree in Public Health and Political Science. In her free time, Emma enjoys going to her local farmer’s market, cooking, cheering on the Cincinnati Bengals, and antagonizing her cats Apollo and Olive and her dog Katy.

Justin Meszler
Intern

Justin Meszler is an Intern at VoteAmerica and a rising senior at Brown University, studying public policy and economics. He first became politically active during the 2020 elections, working to combat voter suppression and later advocating for gun violence prevention. In 2024, he led voter outreach efforts with Voters of Tomorrow to mobilize Gen Z nationwide. Outside of politics, Justin loves finding nearby bike trails, scrolling Instagram reels, and talking about books he should read.

Lindsay Folker
Fundraising Associate

Lindsay Folker is the Fundraising Associate at VoteAmerica. Originally from Chicago, she got her start in the voting space by working on a range of political campaigns in Madison, Wisconsin after graduating from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a degree in Political Science and International Studies and Environmental Studies. She later moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked at a boutique campaign fundraising firm during the 2024 election cycle. Now at VoteAmerica, Lindsay is excited to support innovative efforts to make voting more accessible. Outside of work, she loves doing yoga, going on hikes, and trying every new restaurant she can find in D.C.

Scott Minkoff, PhD
Senior Research Fellow (he/him/his)

Scott is an Associate Professor of Political Science at SUNY New Paltz and a Senior Research Fellow fellow at VoteAmerica. He teaches classes on American politics, state and local politics, public policy, and social science research methods. He is also a co-author on Ed Greenberg and Benjamin Page’s introductory American politics textbook The Struggle for Democracy. Scott Minkoff, along with Todd Makse (Florida International) and Anand Sokhey (CU Boulder), published a book with Oxford University Press.  Politics on Display: Yard Signs and the Politicization of Social Spaces examines one of the most conspicuous features of American political campaigns, yet one that has received little attention as a form of political communication or participation: campaign yard signs. Scott publishes frequently. You can find his work in American Politics Research, Political Geography, Urban Affairs Review, and Social Science Quarterly. (CV)