Providing Democracy and Professionalizing Election Administration Worldwide
Election Assistance
Election administration is a complex phased process many nations face various forms of challenges to manage.
Election Observation
Election administration is a complex phased process many nations face various forms of challenges to manage.
Capacity Development
Election administration is a complex phased process many nations face various forms of challenges to manage.
What We Are Passionate About
The United States International Center for Electoral Support is a nonprofit organization headquartered in the United States with a global remit. USICES supports sustainable democratic development through the provision of technical assistance to election officials, professionalizing election administration, empowering the underrepresented to participate in democratic processes, and providing operational support to Election Management Bodies and key stakeholders within the electoral assistance framework.
Ensuring Global Election Integrity With Knowledge
Specialized Training Programs
Meet The Core Leadership Team
Henry Atem Oben: Executive Director
Mr. Henry Atem has been serving in the Democracy and Elections field for over 15 years, the majority focused on Africa. He currently serves as the Executive Director at the United States Center for Electoral Support (USICES). In this role, he leads the organization’s programs, providing election assistance services to developing democracies, fragile states, and countries in conflict or in post-conflict environments. He has over ten years of expertise in election administration, assessment, monitoring, and assistance. He served in Election Management Body (Elections Cameroon) as Head of Operations, Senior Electoral Specialist, and Electoral Advisor with different Intergovernmental and International Nongovernmental Organizations including the African Union, United Nations, United Nations Development Programme, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, the Carter Center and others.
Mr. Henry Atem has participated in over 15 international election observation missions, including Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Mexico, Brazil, Romania, Papua New Guinea, and others. In these missions, he contributed to conducting assessments on the conduct of elections and provided recommendations for improvement. Henry Atem is an active member of the ACE Election Knowledge and Practitioners Network and has shared expert advice to many junior and aspiring election professionals and contributed to the ACE web content. He is a contributor to the Washington-based Electoral Violence Prediction Market, an initiative of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau for Conflict Stabilization Operations to constantly assess electoral violence early warning systems across the globe with a particular focus on Africa. He has written and contributed to publications relating to the conduct of elections including an “Assessment of Electoral Violence in Africa”, “Road Map to Credible Elections in Algeria”, “Fake News and Disinformation: An Election Integrity Issue”. As an International BRIDGE trainer, he has facilitated many training programs for election officials across the globe. He holds a Graduate Certificate in Election Administration from the University of Minnesota, a Master’s in Electoral Policy and Administration from the School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy, a Master’s in Democracy and Governance from Georgetown University, an MBA from Southern New Hampshire University, and currently a Ph.D. candidate on Public Policy and Administration at Walden University in the United States of America.
Chair of the Advisory Council: Doug Chaplin
Doug Chapin is a renowned expert in election administration. He is chair of the United States International Center for Electoral Support and director of the Program for Excellence in Election Administration (Election Academy) at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota – U.S.A. Chapin came to the Humphrey School after ten years at The Pew Charitable Trusts, where he served as director of Election Initiatives for the Pew Center on the States. Under his leadership, Pew’s elections team successfully lobbied for the enactment of military and overseas voting reform in Congress and state legislatures; enlisted dozens of states and technology partners like Google, Microsoft, and Facebook to provide official voting information online and via mobile technology; and worked with election officials, academics, and technical experts to design and implement efforts to upgrade the nation’s voter registration systems. Prior to serving at Pew, Chapin was an attorney in private practice specializing in election and ethics law.
He served as elections counsel to the Democrats on the U.S. Senate Rules Committee from 1997 to 2000, where he focused on federal election legislation and participated in the review of the disputed 1996 Senate election in Louisiana. He holds a law degree from Georgetown University, a master of public administration degree from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and an A.B. in politics from Princeton University.
Hashim Pasha: Program Officer
Hashim Pasha is a Program Officer at the United States International Center for Electoral Support. His responsibilities include supporting youth engagement programs, providing consultation on training and advocacy, and liaising with international partners of the USICES. He specializes in the Middle East and South Asia. He is fluent in both Arabic and Urdu.
Prior to working with USICES, Hashim was the Trade Development Officer at the Embassy of Pakistan in Washington, DC. In this role, he advised US companies on trade and investment in Pakistan, and maintained active relationships with the US State Department and US Chamber of Commerce. Hashim has had previous roles working for the Government of Malaysia, The Scottish Parliament, and the Government of the District of Columbia with Mayor Muriel Bowser.
Hashim is an alumnus of Tufts University in Boston, MA. Currently, he is a Fellow of Democracy & Governance within the Department of Government at Georgetown University.
Felix Ngalla Kongyuy: Coordinator for Electoral Training Programs:
Felix is a Certified Employment Counselor and trainer. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, a Master’s in Arts and a master’s in Electoral Policy and Administration from the School of Advanced Studies, Pisa-Italy. Felix has been in the industry of education, community engagement, civic education, community leadership education, community development, for over a decade. Felix has extensive professional experience in matters related to social services, conflict resolution, peacebuilding, electoral choices, and the non-profit sector. Felix is a perfect blend if you need a sound and experienced trainer in any of these areas.
He is a man who gets things done. He has served in small and large companies as a Case Manager, Coordinator, Supervisor, Manager, Director, Business Consultant, Grant and proposal writer, and Founder. Felix is also a business owner who is passionate about helping individuals start their own businesses. He has been part of several community-led initiatives in Africa, Canada, and Europe for decades. Felix believes that change in the community is always possible when ordinary citizens stand up, take action and work together as a united force. He speaks English, French, and German.
Heather J. Heyer: Head of Programs
Heather is the Head of Programs at the United States Center for Electoral Support (USICES). She is a competent operations manager with unbeatable skills in program design, innovative solutions, systems, and process improvements to increase efficiency in voting programs and election administration as a whole. She is an advocate for creating networks of election officials and sharing experiences to improve the integrity of election processes that positively impact the voter experience.
Serving as Voting Process Administrator with the Elections Division of the City and County of Denver, Colorado, Heather ensures compliance with federal, state, and local elections laws pertaining to voter registration, analyzes data and current trends to create staffing plans for Voter Registration and Polling Centers, conducts training for elections judges, and ensures staff are trained in the Statewide Colorado Registration and Election (SCORE) system. Heather also leads the Voter Experience Redesign project to reduce the amount of paper and time a voter spends at a Voter Service and Polling Center. Heather also served with the City of Minneapolis, Elections and Voter Services, and the City and County of Denver, Elections Division working on Absentee Ballot Operations and as a Research and Policy Analyst respectively. During graduate school, Heather was a teaching assistant for three courses, Managing Conflict: Negotiation, Regression Analysis, and Multivariate Techniques.
Heather exhibited her exceptional program leadership quality at Memorial Blood Centers where she conducted a needs assessment of departmental training resulting in designing and implementing an innovative training program for critical thinking skills across field operations. As an Executive Team Leader at Target, she improved staff attendance by 13% over a period of 4 months through individual coaching, maximizing productivity and profitability while keeping the focus on critical business priorities.
Michael Njang: Program Manager
Michel Njang has extensive experience in electoral assistant, management/administration, observation, and democratic governance. He started his international career by joining the World Bank in 2009 as an International Legal Consultant. In 2012, he was recruited by UNDP Romania, to train top elections officials from Romania, Eastern Europe, and the Black Sea Region on Combating electoral fraud. In 2013, he joined the Montgomery County Board of election in Maryland U.S.A. Michel has served as International Elections Observer with the U. S State department’s Mission to the Organization of security and corporations in Europe, Office of Democratic Governance and Human Rights (OSEC/ODHIR) being deployed to Georgia Republic, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russian Federation. He equally served as Regional Electoral Coordinator with the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti.
He holds a Master’s degree in international law and human rights, from the American University Washington College of Law in Washington DC, USA.
Our Partners
Join Our Expert Roster
The United States International Center for Electoral Support (USICES) recruits highly-skilled technical consultants to support our programs worldwide, manages a pool of experts and professionals to administer some of its specific projects and training in the United States.
