Our Team
Lift Every Vote is an all-volunteer organization, powered by the labor, creativity, and funding of our members. We have about 80 group leaders across 14 states. Our Facebook group has over 3,000 members, and over 5,000 people have worked on our projects.
Joyce Hackett
Founder & Executive Director
Lift Every Vote
Joyce Hackett is a prizewinning author whose work has been translated into 17 languages. A former high school math teacher, and university creative writing professor, she’s a longtime community organizer who’s designed multiple large-scale, place-based public education writing projects, including Washington Write-a-Story Day. In late 2016, she founded Lift Every Vote to engage activists to prioritize high-impact, structural voting reform. She’s at work on a novel about Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony, and the post-war moment at which the suffrage and abolition movements parted ways. Joyce is responsible for the design of LEV’s voting projects, and bringing together the stakeholders needed to execute them. She’s taught thousands of people about voting law and voter registration.
Jeanne Heifetz
Research and Project Design
Jeanne Heifetz ran her first voter-registration drive in 1988, registering 2000 voters over four days. She’s been dedicated to voter registration and voting rights ever since. In recent years, she has organized large-scale volunteer projects in support of the restoration of voting rights to formerly incarcerated Floridians and to help residents of tribal reservations in North Dakota obtain the ID needed to vote. In 2020 she joined with Kim (who happens to be her cousin) to start The Largest Generation, and is a designer of The Largest Generation Project at Lift Every Vote. She likes to carry voter-registration forms in her backpack so they’re always handy.
Kim Sillen
Graphic Design, Strategy
Kim Sillen creates graphic design and public messaging for the City of New York. She earned a Masters of Public Administration from Baruch College, where her thesis examined methods to increase youth voter turnout. In 2020, she and Jeanne Heifetz created The Largest Generation, working with a dozen high-school and college students to create informational images and animations aimed at youth explaining voter registration. Kim’s designs were used by youth organizations and on college campuses in 11 states, and even appeared on New York City taxis!
Peter Sylwester
Data Design and Visualization
Peter Sylwester is a graphic artist, designer, engineer, and data visualist who studied at the Rhode Island School of Design. He generously donates his many competencies, developed in a career in advertising, publishing, e-commerce, telecommunications, data analytics, and software engineering. Most recently, he spent a decade at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation building tools for the Institute for Disease Modeling.
Liza Abraham
Data & Digital Organizing
Liza Abraham is a Data Fellow at Civera, and completed Columbia Engineering’s Data Analytics Bootcamp in 2022. Having worked for 10 years in Victims’ Services for the State of Minnesota, she also has extensive state government experience. She’s veteran of numerous voter protection operations, and has worked with election officials, candidates, and attorneys to solve voting problems through education. She also has a Level 3 wine certification, and loves discussing things like mouth-feel, and terroir.
John Casey
Treasurer
John Casey worked for more than 30 years in finance and investing in the US and various countries in Asia. Most of this time he analysed corporate financial statements, and some of it was spent designing quantitative trading systems, both of which involve solid numeracy. A finance nerd, basically. Also, somehow, a talented rock guitarist (our words, not his!). He’s deeply committed to empowering underrepresented Americans’ voices and votes.
Lynn Feldman
Operations, Management, Genius Advice
Lynne is a seasoned nonprofit leader with fifteen years’ experience in program management, operations, and communications. In her current role, she manages a portfolio of programs serving older adults in Western and Central Massachusetts. She is the co-founder of the Petersham Anti-Racism Coalition which creates community events focusing on educating residents about indigenous culture. She also is a musician and leader of the House Band for a community music event, Petersham Jams.
Ron Peacetree
Accounting
A social justice activist of Native American descent, Ron grew up amidst the Civil Rights, Peace, and American Indian movements in a family whose tradition of service stretches back to helping enslaved people escape. After graduating from MIT with a degree in physics and engineering, Ron worked in quality control for decades. He’s now a Manager and Senior Tax Preparer at H&R Block.