About CEC

Who We Are

The Center for Election Confidence is a non-profit organization with a long history of advancing the role of ethics, integrity, and legal professionalism in the electoral process, including safeguarding the right of eligible voters to vote. Formerly known as Lawyers Democracy Fund, CEC works towards increasing confidence in election results and election systems. The endurance of our republic requires trustworthy, understandable voting processes established well in advance of the election through clear laws and procedures.

What We Do

The Center for Election Confidence conducts, funds, and publishes research and in-depth analysis regarding the effectiveness of current and proposed election methods, particularly those lacking adequate coverage in the national media. CEC periodically engages in public-interest litigation and submits amicus curiae briefs to uphold the rule of law and integrity of elections. 

Leadership

Elliot S. Berke, President

Elliot Berke serves as a Managing Partner of Berke Farah LLP. He has been named by Chambers USA as a “Nationwide Best Lawyer” and by Washingtonian as one of “Washington’s Best Lawyers.” His diverse client base consists of federal and state elected and appointed officials, campaign committees, political parties, PACs, corporations, small businesses, trade associations, lobbying firms, public relations firms, nonprofits, and individuals. He represents clients before congressional ethics and oversight committees, the FEC, the DOJ, Inspectors General, and other and federal and state departments and agencies. He has represented presidential appointees on their confirmation and tenure over three Administrations including at the cabinet level. He has represented the top four leadership positions in the U.S. House of Representatives, either as in house or outside counsel.

He currently serves as a Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Georgia (and served as a Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Oregon 2014-2016). He has run election day war rooms for presidential and gubernatorial candidates. He is on his second term on the Board of Advisors of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. He is a frequent speaker on political law, and regularly conducts the ethics training for the Members of Congress and Chief of Staff retreats sponsored by the Congressional Institute, where he serves as its outside counsel. He serves as General Counsel & Senior Advisor to the Jack Kemp Foundation. His commentary has appeared in media outlets including Fox’s Special Report w/Bret Baier and Tucker Carlson Tonight, NBC Nightly News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today, Politico and the Washington Post.

Prior to entering private practice, Elliot served as Counsel to the Speaker of the House and House Majority Leader and served as the principal policy advisor on homeland security, judiciary, tort reform, and campaign finance issues, including on the Class Action Fairness Act and the reauthorizations of the PATRIOT Act and the Voting Rights Act. He also served as Special Counsel at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a Senior Associate Independent Counsel, and as counsel to House and Senate oversight committees.

Elliot is a cum laude graduate of Wake Forest University, where he was a member of the Pi Sigma Alpha and Phi Alpha Theta Honor Societies, and Emory University School of Law, where he served as Executive Articles Editor of the Emory International Law Review.


Ashlee N. Titus, Vice President and Secretary

Ashlee Titus joined Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk, LLP in 2004. She maintains a nationwide practice advising individuals, businesses, candidates, political action committees (PACs), lobbyists, and trade associations on compliance with complex campaign finance and advertising, lobbying, and nonprofit tax exempt statutes and regulations. Ms. Titus also counsels clients on navigating the process of qualifying initiative, referenda and recall ballot measures at state and local levels and all aspects of such campaigns.

Ms. Titus is a leader organizing efforts to ensure integrity and proper administration of elections in California. She is an active member of the California Political Attorneys Association, Federalist Society, and Republican National Lawyers Association, and a supporter of the Center for Civic Education.

Prior to joining Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk, LLP, Ms. Titus served as a staff member in the California State Legislature and with a congressional campaign. She received her Juris Doctor from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, and her undergraduate degree with honors in Political Science and a minor in Philosophy from Chatham College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was admitted to the State Bar of California in 2003.


T. Michael Andrews, Treasurer

Mike Andrews serves as senior vice president in the Federal Public Affairs group at McGuireWoods Consulting after a successful career on Capitol Hill. He also serves as partner with McGuireWoods LLP. With over 20 years of experience of federal Indian law and legislative strategies with a bipartisan, results driven focus, Mike leads McGuireWoods Consulting’s policy work on matters impacting Native American tribes.

While working on Capitol Hill, Mike served as staff director and chief counsel for the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs under the leadership of Sens. John Barrasso, John Hoeven and Lisa Murkowski. As staff director, Mike was instrumental in passing over 50 bills signed into law by Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden. He also assisted with over 90 bills passed out of the United States Senate by unanimous consent and was responsible for passing more than 140 bills out of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee with strong bipartisan support. Additionally, Mike was responsible in confirming over 10 presidential nominees spanning three presidential administrations, as well as working on some of the largest appropriations funding programs in American history.

Prior to Capitol Hill, Mike served as a state, federal and tribal prosecutor in Arizona. He also served as a senior executive at both the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he focused on Native American housing, as well as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where he focused on border security matters. Mike also served as chief prosecutor and counsel for the Pascua Yaqui Indian Nation in Tucson, Arizona. Finally, Mike served as lead counsel for the D.C. Crime Victims Resource center, where he focused on enforcing crime victim’s legal rights and was also chair of the Victim Advisory Group for the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Mike currently serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland Global Campus and is a Flotilla Commander in the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, where he concentrates on boater education and marine safety for the National Capitol Region. He is a Member of the District of Columbia Bar.


Sara Frankenstein, Board Member

Sara Frankenstein is a partner of Gunderson, Palmer, Nelson & Ashmore, LLP. She is trial lawyer and practices in the areas of election law, governmental law, employment law, administrative law, and insurance defense. Sara serves as city attorney and special counsel for a number of cities and advises and defends hundreds of cities and counties in litigation and prelitigation. Sara trains and advises all 64 county election administrators in the State of South Dakota through all aspects of state and federal election law, and does the same for most of the towns and cities throughout South Dakota. Sara has twice testified before Congress on the issue of voting rights. She served as special counsel to the South Dakota House of Representatives for the impeachment of South Dakota’s former Attorney General, and advises legislators on election and governmental law. She has successfully argued a Voting Rights Act re-districting case before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals en banc (all 11 judges), and successfully briefed the case to the United States Supreme Court. In 2009, she won an election law trial which was the lead South Dakota news story that year. Sara has been selected as a Super Lawyer for the last five years in the areas of Legislative and Governmental Affairs.


Sara served on the South Dakota State Advisory Committee that reports to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She also serves on the board of directors for Sentinel Federal Credit Union, which has eight locations across South Dakota. She has served on numerous other boards and committees dedicated to scholarship opportunities, charities, and community development, and frequently speaks, emcees, and sings for a variety of events.


Sara earned her Bachelors of Art and Juris Doctor from the University of South Dakota. She served as Law Clerk to the Honorable Richard H. Battey, U.S. District Court, South Dakota in 2001 and 2002.


Edward D. Greim, Board Member

Edward “Eddie” Greim is Partner at Graves Garrett LLC where he focuses his practice on complex commercial litigation, free speech and election law, and internal investigations and whistleblower claims. He has been recognized for his successful representation of businesses and individuals in commercial litigation while also being named a “go-to” lawyer on policy and constitutional issues.

Eddie was named a Constitutional and Election Law Trailblazer by the National Law Journal in 2020. His free speech and election law practice has included numerous constitutional challenges to election and campaign finance laws; representation of clients in state and federal ethics and campaign finance enforcement actions and investigations; initiative petition drafting and litigation; litigation and advice regarding First Amendment protections for petition circulation; representation of not-for-profit clients before state regulators; litigation of state and federal redistricting issues; and advice on campaign and election law compliance.

Eddie complements his trial work in complex, high-profile commercial and constitutional cases with oral advocacy and briefing in important appeals. Recognized as a Missouri Lawyers Media POWER 30 Appellate Attorney in 2021, he has argued before the Missouri and Kansas supreme courts multiple times, other state appellate courts across the country, and before the Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Tenth U.S. Courts of Appeals.

Eddie received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 2002, where he taught on the Board of Student Advisers, received the Dean’s Award for Leadership, and served as President of the Harvard Catholic Law Students Association. He received two bachelor’s degrees, summa cum laude, in economics and political science from the University of Missouri. 


Lisa L. Dixon, Executive Director

Lisa Dixon serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Election Confidence (formerly known as Lawyers Democracy Fund). Lisa is also a consultant for the Republican National Lawyers Association, serving as their Legal Counsel. Previously, Lisa practiced at Holtzman Vogel, where she specialized in tax-exempt organizations, campaign finance and election law, and lobbying compliance.


During law school, she interned for the Office of Chief Counsel, Procedure and Administration, at the Internal Revenue Service and at the Center for Law and Religious Freedom. Before law school, she served as the Assistant Student Division Director at The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies and interned at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.

Ms. Dixon earned a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2010, an M.A. in History from the University of Virginia in 2010, and a B.A. in History from Hillsdale College in 2005. After 18 years on the East Coast, mostly in northern Virginia, she recently returned to her native Michigan, where she lives with her husband and three sons.