Democracy and Election Administration Webinar Series

Edward Hailes, Jr. is an experienced civil rights attorney and ordained Baptist minister. A former general counsel for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, directing both the agency's historic investigation into allegations of voting irregularities in Florida during the November 2000 presidential election and the high-profile hearing on police practices and civil rights in New York City sparked by the police shooting of Amadou Diallo. Hailes also served for ten years as a legal, then legislative, counsel for the NAACP, gaining a remarkable record of success in civil rights litigation and legislative advocacy. A graduate of Howard University School of Law, he also earned his undergraduate degree at Howard University as an honors program graduate. Reverend Hailes is the assistant to the pastor of Mt. Moriah Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. Hailes is admitted in Washington DC.

Denise Lieberman, a civil rights lawyer, brings a wealth of voting rights advocacy experience to Advancement Project. As the legal director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri from 1997-2005, she litigated several significant voting rights cases and supervised voter protection outreach and advocacy efforts. An organizer of the 2004 Missouri Voter Protection Coalition, Lieberman also served as coordinator of the 2004 Missouri Voter Protection Legal Command Center. Denise currently teaches courses on constitutional law and civil rights at Washington University in St. Louis, serves as co-chair of the Individual Rights and Responsibilities Committee of the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis, and is a founding member of the new Stetin Center for Law and Social Change. Lieberman is admitted in Missouri.

Tova Andrea Wang, a nationally known expert on election reform and political participation, is Senior Democracy Fellow at Demos. Her work focuses on primarily on voting rights, but she has also done significant research and writing on civil rights and liberties, immigration, campaign finance reform and media reform. She was the Executive Director of The Century Foundation's Post-2004 Election Reform Working Group, comprised of many of the preeminent election law scholars in the country. In 2001, she was staff person to the National Commission on Federal Election Reform, co-chaired by former Presidents Carter and Ford. She is the author of numerous election reform reports. Her commentary on this subject has appeared in numerous print media outlets and she has frequently appeared on national radio and television, including NBC's the Today Show, ABC Nightly News, ABC Good Morning America, CBS Morning News, CNN, C-Span's Washington Journal, MSNBC, CBS Evening News, and NPR. She has been a featured speaker at a number of national election reform conferences and forums and has provided her expertise to members of Congress and state legislators, as well as advocates and legislators from around the world. She is also a Democracy Fellow at The Century Foundation.