About

Twenty years of work in elections and the courts

The Concord Project was founded in 2025 by Chad Vickery and Katherine Ellena. Between them, they have spent more than twenty years helping courts, election commissions, and governments resolve election disputes and protect the integrity of elections.

Our story

Why we started The Concord Project

The Concord Project builds on decades of experience strengthening democracy in every region of the world. We helped Ethiopia’s judiciary deliver its first national training on election litigation, co-designed a master’s program in election dispute resolution in Ukraine, and helped shape procedures for the Bougainville independence referendum. In each case our role was the same: to work as neutral, nonpartisan partners alongside the people who safeguard their own democracies.

As founding members of the Global Network on Electoral Justice, we helped build partnerships that now connect judges, election officials, and institutions across continents. We have carried out comparative research across countries and regions, and we have written guidance that is now used to strengthen electoral integrity worldwide.

We left our executive positions to start The Concord Project for three reasons. As U.S. voters, we believe we must contribute at home, and in a practical way. We want to fill specific technical gaps where others are not working or cannot work. And we want to bring a risk- and results-based approach to program impact, drawn from what we learned abroad.

Founders

The people behind the work

Katherine Ellena

Co-Founder & Senior Director

Katherine Ellena is a U.S.-based attorney and nonprofit executive with more than twenty years of experience in democracy programs worldwide. She has worked with election commissions, oversight bodies, anti-corruption commissions, tribunals, courts, and civil society in more than 30 countries. She has helped countries design their national election dispute resolution systems, partnered with federal judiciaries to design and deliver training on election litigation, and worked with institutions and legislators to refine election laws and administrative rules.

She is a former diplomat with the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, a special advisor to the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Election Law, and a member of the Scientific Committee of the Global Network on Electoral Justice. She holds a master’s degree in law and bachelor’s degrees in law and philosophy from the University of Canterbury, and a graduate diploma in international development from the University of London.

Ellena plays the drums, rides a Triumph Bonneville motorcycle, and once had to sleep on the floor of a public toilet in a rural Indian train station.

Chad Vickery

Co-Founder, Board Chair & General Counsel

Chad Vickery is an attorney and global elections expert who has worked in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the United States. He has led efforts to improve electoral integrity, develop impartial legal frameworks, and increase participation among historically underrepresented groups. He led the creation of new methods for assessing the integrity of elections around the world, with a focus on identifying and addressing electoral fraud and malpractice, and on investigating and resolving electoral complaints effectively. His career has focused on promoting the rule of law, professionalizing election administration, and building systems that protect the fairness and legitimacy of democratic processes.

He holds a master’s degree in international relations from Georgetown University, a Juris Doctor from the Catholic University of America with a specialization in comparative and international law, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Washington.

Vickery is an avid road cyclist and mountain biker, shares his home with two golden doodles, and was once instructed to approach the bench during a courtesy call at a district court in Pakistan.

Selected publications

Research, guidance, and commentary

Work by our founders, written before and since The Concord Project began.

Articles

Chad Vickery, Katherine Ellena & Rebecca Green, Administrative Pathways to Electoral Justice: A Comparative Study, 45 Rev. Litig. 459 (2026). Read our summary. New

Op-eds

“Supporting credible elections to advance democracy globally in 2024 and beyond,” The Atlantic Council, September 2024
“The Dark Side of Democracy,” Foreign Policy, July 2022
“Yes, the Presidential Election Can Be Manipulated,” The Washington Post, September 2016

Books

Pippa Norris, Sarah Cameron & Thomas Wynter (eds.), Electoral Integrity in America, Oxford University Press, 2018
Jack Young (ed.), International Election Remedies, ABA Standing Committee on Election Law, 2016
Chad Vickery (ed.), Guidelines for Understanding, Adjudicating, and Resolving Disputes in Elections (GUARDE), IFES, 2011

Research and guides

Guardrails for Democracy, IFES, 2022
Legal Considerations When Delaying or Adapting Elections, IFES, June 2020
Election Investigations Guidebook, IFES, 2020
Elections on Trial: The Effective Management of Election Disputes and Violations, IFES, 2018
Election Audits: International Principles that Protect Electoral Integrity, IFES and Democracy International, 2015

Work with us

If you administer elections, sit on a court, fund this field, or have the expertise to join an assessment team, we would like to hear from you.