Who We Are

The Voting Village is made possible by a team of computer scientists and researchers with decades of experience in election integrity. It was founded on the principal of transparency by world renown cybersecurity professionals with a passion for preserving democracy.

Historically, electronic voting systems were known to be black box systems, meaning there was no third party or outside researchers with access to the hardware and software of these systems. This all changed with a new exemption to the DMCA for security research which led to the inception of the Voting Village at DEF CON. For the first time outside researches were able to quite literally look under the hood of these voting systems and what they found was incredible. Our past vulnerable disclosure reports provide detailed evidence of the countless vulnerabilities that have been discovered.

What started with the famous Hursti Hacks has transformed into one of the most enriching educational experiences available to the public. The Voting Village at DEF CON gives voters access not only to our election systems, but also our team of experts who have been calling for the transparency in elections since electronic voting machines were implemented.

  • Harri Hursti

    FOUNDER

    Harri Hursti, a world renowned data security expert and internet visionary, is the Founder of the Election Integrity Foundation as well as an original co-Founder of the Voting Village. Featured in two Emmy nominated documentaries, Mr. Hursti is famously known for the Hursti Hacks, where he demonstrated how to successfully alter final voting results on the Diebold Election Systems voting machines.

  • Catherine Terranova

    EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

    Catherine Terranova is a Columbia University alumna and researcher. Her current focus is on cyber security and election integrity with an emphasis on misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation, known as information integrity. Ms. Terranova joined the team in 2021 and has been growing and developing the Voting Village since DEF CON 29. She heads all aspects of the program and manages other related projects focused on the global preservation of democracy.

  • Matt Blaze

    CHAIR OF THE BOARD

    Matt Blaze is one of the original co-founders of the Voting Village and is currently the McDevitt Professor of Computer Science and Law at Georgetown University. He has over two decades of experience with election system security, and his current research focuses on security, privacy, and robustness in large scale systems with an emphasis on problems at the intersection of technology and public policy.

  • David Jefferson

    SECRETARY OF THE BOARD

    Dr. David Jefferson is a computer scientist and an internationally recognized researcher on election security for well over twenty years, advising five Secretaries of State of California on voting technology issues. He served as the Chair of the Secretary of State's Post-Election Audit Standards Working Group, the panel that invented the notion of risk limiting audits and has written extensively on elections and voting security.

  • Brian DeMuth

    TREASURER OF THE BOARD

    Brian DeMuth is an entrepreneur and technologist who has spent his career supporting the national security mission and commercial cyber security market spaces. He has founded and co-founded a number of successful companies and nonprofits in these markets. He currently serves on various advisory boards, board of directors, and in a variety of mentorship positions related to cybersecurity and tech.

  • Kendall Spencer ESQ.

    Kendall Spencer is a graduate of Georgetown University Law School where he was a Technology Law Scholar. As a legal professional he focuses on the changing digital landscape brought on by technology, and complex litigation matters within the world of sports. While attending law school, he trained as a long-jumper and made it to the 2021 US Olympic team. After law school, Spencer will use the lessons learned in college sports to serve the community through advocacy and build his legal career through technology, sports and policy. Spencer earned his bachelor’s degree in Psychology with minors in Business and Sociology from the University of New Mexico.