Ballotpedia S Ceo And Founder Leslie Graves The Pathfinder

Leo Migdal
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ballotpedia s ceo and founder leslie graves the pathfinder

If you’ve looked online for a sample ballot or searched for unbiased information about a candidate, ballot measure, or policy initiative, you’ve almost certainly come across Ballotpedia, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit whose mission is to... We interviewed Ballotpedia’s founder and CEO Leslie Graves to find out more about their work, the expertise they bring as partners to Preserving Democracy, and to get a sense of what readers can look... Preserving Democracy: I’d love to hear some background on how and why you founded Ballotpedia. How did the organization come to life? Leslie Graves: Really – in 2006 at my kitchen table. I know it sounds cliche, but I was trying to find an unbiased source of information on ballot measures for an upcoming election.

I was struck by two things: The general lack of available information in easy-to-understand language and if any information on those initiatives existed at all, it was almost always partisan. Ultimately, I made it my mission to provide information voters could trust, with verifiable facts, and absolutely no spin. It was an immediate hit with readers, and the rest, as they say, is history. Leslie Graves is the founder and CEO of Ballotpedia, the nonprofit online political encyclopedia of American politics.[1][2][3][4][5][6] Graves has a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland.

She did graduate work in philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She co-authored "Is indeterminism the source of the statistical character of evolutionary theory?" in the Philosophy of Science and wrote "Transgressive traditions and art definitions" for the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.[7][8] In 1980, Graves collected signatures to qualify the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate, Ed Clark, for a spot on the ballot. She later served as Wisconsin chair of the Libertarian Party, and as the party's national finance chair.[9] In 2007, Graves founded the Lucy Burns Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that publishes Ballotpedia. In 2012, Graves authored a guidebook titled Local Ballot Initiatives: How citizens change laws with clipboards, conversations, and campaigns.[2][10]

Emotional responses after the 2024 elections are understandable, but they don’t begin to tell the whole story of what happened, why it happened, or what will happen next. Can history be a guide? Perhaps. 10,000 election jurisdictions oversee the races for more than 500,000 elected officials, from president to sheriff. It is a daunting task that’s become even more so in some localities in recent years owing to the spread of misinformation. The Pathfinder: Let’s Talk Politics Politics, religion, and money—the three topics we have long been told shouldn’t be discussed in polite company—but just about everyone does anyway.

And that includes the places we work. Politics are often part of our… Deepfakes, an offshoot of Artificial Intelligence (AI), have become a pressing social and political issue that many state lawmakers are trying to address through legislation. We need to educate ourselves on all the candidates running for office where we live. That means finding out who these people are – which can be a surprisingly difficult thing for the average voter to do. On this episode: The second installment of our new series Office Hours, featuring founder and CEO Leslie Graves in wide-ranging conversations about how and why Ballotpedia does its work, ranging from editorial decisions and...

This content is not available in your region On this episode: The second installment of our new series Office Hours, featuring founder and CEO Leslie Graves in wide-ranging conversations about how and why Ballotpedia does its work, ranging from editorial decisions and... Each episode builds on themes from Leslie’s Pathfinder column for PBS/WNET’s Preserving Democracy initiative. In this episode, we kick off a new effort to hear directly from our readers and listeners by asking open-ended questions in our newsletters. What motivates politically curious people to keep learning? Why do they seek out extra context, or unbiased sources?

And how can Ballotpedia foster that kind of community? Catch up on Leslie’s columns: https://ballotpedia.org/From_the_desk... Full Office Hours Series: • Office Hours with Ballotpedia Founder and ... Complete a brief 5 minute survey to review the show and share some feedback: https://forms.gle/zPxYSog5civyvEKX6 Sign up for our Newsletters: https://ballotpedia.org/Ballotpedia_E... Stream "On the Ballot" on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you have questions, comments, or love for BP, feel free to reach out at ontheballot@ballotpedia.org or on X (formerly Twitter) @Ballotpedia.

*On The Ballot is a conversational podcast featuring interviews with guests across the political spectrum. The views and opinions expressed by them are solely their own and are not representative of the views of the host or Ballotpedia as a whole. Commenting is only available to members with access. Sign In One of the marvels of the American consumer economy is its consistency. For example, two people can go into a Starbucks on opposite sides of the country simultaneously and order a Caffè Americano.

Every time they visit, each will get the same brew, made following the same procedures. That kind of uniformity works wonders for large national brands, creating business efficiencies and predictability for their customers. But such uniformity doesn’t apply to how we conduct our elections. We have no U.S. Department of Elections establishing Starbucks-like national election rules or procedures. Instead, what we have is more like a kaleidoscope.

It looks like loosely assembled pieces of glass with different shapes, sizes, and colors. We may discern order in the kaleidoscope, but not easily. Why does one state conduct its elections entirely by mail when the state next door allows people to vote by mail or in person? How can one county allow voters to turn in ballots at drop boxes, while in the neighboring county, early ballots can only be turned in to the clerk’s central office? That’s how states and localities have decided their systems should work. Over time, such decentralization has produced several democratic reforms – like the secret ballot, women’s suffrage, and lowering the voting age from 21 to 18.

More recently, states and localities have explored various methods for running primary elections, such as using ranked-choice voting to decide election winners and much more.

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