Doug Chapin

Background

About Doug Chapin

Doug Chapin is a nationally-recognized expert on election administration with almost thirty-five years’ of experience in the field. Doug joined Fors Marsh after seven years at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs, where he founded and served as an adjunct professor for the Certificate in Election Administration Program, the nation’s first fully-online graduate and undergraduate-level courses leading to a university-sponsored credential. Prior to that, he spent over 10 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 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. Doug is also founder of electionline.org, the nation’s leading nonpartisan source for election policy news and information. Chapin has served as an attorney in private practice specializing in election and ethics law and was elections counsel to the Democrats on the U.S. Senate Rules Committee from He is a frequent speaker and commentator on election matters, including for the New York Times, Governing Magazine and National Public Radio.