Trustworthy Elections Campaign
Building trust in the integrity of our elections.
Our vision in this national campaign is an America in which growing majorities in both parties believe that U.S. elections are fair, reliable, and worthy of the public’s trust. To realize this vision, Common Ground Workshops across the country bring together conservatives concerned with voter fraud and election security and progressives concerned with voter suppression and the peaceful transfer of power to look for common-ground ideas for establishing trustworthy elections. From each local workshop, participants (with the requirement of equal numbers red and blue) will be eligible to join a national task force on trustworthy elections.
In 2023, we will release a jointly-authored (half red/half blue) Report to the Nation on common-ground ideas for ensuring bipartisan trust in U.S. elections. The National Leadership Committee of the Trustworthy Elections Campaign will disseminate this message of hope and these practical ideas to legislators, the media, leaders of civil society, and opinion leaders across the country.
Organize a Workshop
The primary tool for the Trustworthy Elections Campaign will be Common Ground Workshops organized across the country in which citizens meet on equal terms in mixed groups (concerned with fraud / concerned with suppression) to clarify differences and seek common ground. The stories and recommendations emerging from this grassroots American conversation will inform and structure the next phase of the initiative. Please consider organizing a workshop in your area.
For further assistance with organizing an event, please reach out to our National Coordinator Bill Carberry.
Join the National Task Force
Ways You Can Help
- Join Braver Angels!
- We are looking for people who would like to attend a workshop
- We need volunteers to help organize the workshops
- If you've attended a Common Grounds Workshop, please apply to join the National Task Force
- Become a trained moderator
- We need people who will reach into their networks to recruit participants
- We need help with media outreach
Meet the Campaign Leaders
Reena Bernards
Leans Blue
Reena is the Initiative Leader of the Trustworthy Elections Campaign. As a Braver Angels moderator and national leader, she created the “Common Ground Workshop” so Reds and Blues can address issues constructivly. The workshops do a deep dive into a single issue for the purpose of finding unanimous points of agreement on values, concerns and solutions/policies. Common Ground Workshops have tackled such issues as abortion, teaching about race and racism in public schools, antisemitism, addressing climate change – and now, ensuring trustworthy elections. Reena is a marriage and family therapist in the DC area.
David Blankenhorn
President of Braver Angels
David is president and co-founder of Braver Angels. He is the author of In search of Braver Angels. He co-founded the National Fatherhood Initiative in 1995, founded the Institute for American Values in 1988, and has authored or co-edited 14 books. He grew up in Mississippi and now lives with his family in New York City.
Dr. Samuel L. Bradley, Jr.
LEANS BLUE
Samuel is an assistant professor of macro practice at the Boston College School of Social Work. His research focus is on innovation and equity within organizations. He is particularly passionate about utilizing design thinking as a strategy for developing innovation in higher education as well as leveraging higher education programs to support community outcomes. Samuel is a fellow with the Social Work Health Futures Lab funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He has presented at a training workshop for Braver Angel leaders, on how to reach out to African Americans.
William (Bill) Carberry
Leans Blue
Bill is the National Coordinator for the Trustworthy Elections Campaign and has volunteered in Braver Angels since November 2020. Bill is retired from Boeing Product Development where he directed the development of carbon fiber recycling for the 787 and 777X programs, and was previously the manager for EPA Region X’s chemical spill response contact team. Bill is a native New Englander who came to the Seattle area via Mali West Africa (Peace Corps).
Elizabeth Doll
LEANS RED
Elizabeth directs the Braver Politics program at Braver Angels. A native of Washington State, she began working in politics more than a decade ago as a 16-year-old. While interning on a congressional campaign, she discovered a passion for the work of improving her community. Since then, Doll has volunteered, worked, consulted for, and managed multiple Washington state Republican campaigns, from statewide gubernatorial races to local fire commissioner races.
Larry Mayes
LEANS BLUE
Larry is the Blue Co-Chair of the Trustworthy Elections Leadership Team. He is the Senior Vice President for Government and Community Relations at Catholic Charities of Boston, responsible for the execution of the Agency’s programs throughout Eastern Massachusetts. A passionate leader for creative solutions to stem youth violence, he also serves as an advocate on social issues that the organization is involved with including hunger, job training, and resettlement and interpretation services. Prior to joining Catholic Charities in 2010, Larry was the cabinet chief of human services for Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and an advisor for public safety issues for the City of Boston.
Walt McKee
LEANS RED
Walt is the Red Co-Chair of the Trustworthy Elections Leadership Team. He lives in Maryland with his wife, Juliana. They have been married for 40 years and have three adult children. He worked as a business entrepreneur and, in addition to Braver Angels activity, serves on two nonprofit boards: Steadfast, which serves homeless youth; and the Sandy Spring Slave Museum and African Art Gallery.
Dan Messina
LEANS RED
Dan joined Braver Angels in 2021 and took on multiple leadership roles within the organization. He became the Red Co-Chair for the newly formed Northeast Ohio (Cleveland/Akron area) Alliance and currently serves on the Red Caucus Steering Committee. Since 2012, Dan has been actively involved in the electoral process, working as an elections official and taking on various responsibilities over the years. Currently, he dedicates part of his time to community outreach as a member of the Board of Elections. Dan’s deep fascination with elections has led him to engage in independent study on the subject. Additionally, Dan actively contributes to the political landscape as a member of the central committee of the Republican Party of Cuyahoga County and through volunteering for different campaigns. Despite his academic background in mathematics, Dan possesses a lifelong passion for history, and he also nurtures interests in philosophy, physics, science, psychology, technology, and government.
Lenny Mirra
LEANS RED
Lenny is the Red Co-Chair for Greater Boston Braver Angels and a former Massachusetts State Representative. After having lost the 2022 election by a single vote he has focused on improving trust and credibility in our election system by organizing discussions and Fishbowl events tackling issues such as redistricting and voter ID. He lives in Georgetown Massachusetts where he works as a property manager.
Dr. Peter Skerry
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Peter is professor of political science at Boston College and a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. He is also a contributing editor at American Purpose and a member of the editorial board of Society. He was previously professor of political science at Claremont McKenna College, and taught political science at UCLA, where he was Director of Washington Programs at the Center for American Politics and Public Policy.
Dan Thomas
LEANS BLUE
Dan has been an entrepreneur in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than 20 years. His businesses have included a supply chain consulting company and language translation agency. He’s been an early member of a tech start up in the education software space, and a wholesale distribution start up that sold US made organic products in NE China. Dan has graduate degrees in Political Science. And he co-hosts regular Civil Discourse meetings.
Dr. Catherine Tumber
LEANS BLUE
Catherine is a historian and journalist who has published books, essays, and reports on a variety of subjects and in publications ranging from the Washington Post and the American Prospect to Raritan, The Baffler, and Architectural Record. She is the author of Small, Gritty, and Green: The Promise of America’s Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World (MIT Press, 2012) and co-editor of A Strange Freedom: The Best of Howard Thurman on Religious Experience and Public Life (Beacon Press, 1998). In recent years she held senior positions at Northeastern University’s Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy and the UMass Donahue Institute Economic and Public Policy Research Group. She is a Scholar with the Penn Institute for Urban Research and a Fellow with MassINC’s Gateway Cities Innovation Institute. To learn more about her work, visit https://catherinetumber.com/.
Linda Jordan Willard
LEANS RED
Linda currently is a Counsel and member of the Energy practice at Dentons. Resident in the Washington, DC, office, Linda represents clients before Congress, the executive branch and other government entities. She has served as a counsel to the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works; a lawyer in the Energy and Environment practice of a global law firm based in Washington; and counsel and senior policy advisor in a DC-based lobbying firm. Linda has served on the Board of Managers of Chevy Chase Village, MD since 2019. She also is on the board of Issue One, a cross-partisan political reform group based in Washington, DC. She has been a member of the Montgomery County Alliance of Braver
Angels and ran for the Maryland House of Delegates in 2018.
Progress to Date
Future Workshops
| Washington DC (in-person) | 10/14/2023 |
| Wisconsin | October TBD |
| California (on-line) | October TBD |
| Florida | September TBD |
| North Carolina | Aug TBD |
| Kansas (on-line) | October TBD |
| New Mexico (on-line) | October TBD |
| Illinois (on-line) | October TBD |
| Texas | Pending |
Completed
| Montgomery County, MD (Online) | 10/20 |
| Carroll County, MD (Live) | 11/20 |
| Texas (Online) | 6/21 |
| Boston, MA (Live) | 6/22 |
| Southern California (National Online) | 9/22 |
| Northern California (live) | 10/22 |
| Western Washington (National Online) | 11/22 |
| Georgia (Online) | 2/23 |
| Colorado (Online) | 3/23 |
| Minnesota (Online) | 3/23 |
| North Carolina (Live: 2 in total) | 3/23 |
| Colorado (National online) | 4/23 |
| Task Force mini-workshop (Redistricting) | 4/23 |
| National (on-line) | 4/23 |
| South Carolina (on-line) | 5/23 |
| Task Force mini-workshop (on-line) (Voter ID) | 5/23 |
| National (on-line) | 5/23 |
| Task Force mini-workshop (on-line) (Peaceful Transfer of Power) | 6/23 |
| BA Convention (in person) | 7/23 |
| Indiana (on-line) | 8/23 |
| North Carolina | 9/23 |
| Task Force mini-workshop (Mail-in and Absentee Ballots) | 9/23 |