We are a team of talented and experienced election professionals, and observers, with a wide range of skills and experience. We love what we do, and we do it with enthusiasm. We look forward to working with you.
Dr John Ault FRSA FRGS
Director
John Ault is the Executive Director of Democracy Volunteers. John has worked in elections throughout the UK, Europe, and the United States since the 1980s. He has observed on behalf of the OSCE/ODIHR and the UK Parliament’s Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in parliamentary elections as wide-ranging as Kazakhstan and the Isle of Man. He is a former chair of the UK’s Electoral Reform Society and has previously been elected to local government and the UK’s South-West Regional Assembly.
John has observed numerous elections for Democracy Volunteers, including Swedish and Norwegian parliamentary elections, the UK general elections in 2017, 2019 and 2024, the Finnish presidential and parliamentary elections in 2018, 2019 and 2023, as well as Dutch elections in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023. He has been an academic consultant on electoral and parliamentary reform in Moldova. He is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Exeter and has previously lectured at several UK universities. He has also been a Research Fellow for the Constitution Society, writing the recent article ‘An accident waiting to happen? Voter ID in the 2023 English local elections.’ He specialises in elections and campaigns and has published several books, including his doctoral thesis on electoral campaigning.
Harry Busz FRSA
Deputy Director – Policy
Harry was previously our Head of Operations but has recently been promoted to become to be Deputy Director of the organisation. Harry Busz is a graduate in Human Geography at Cardiff University and holds an MA in International Relations from Exeter University and is currently researching for his PhD in Politics at Newcastle University. His research focuses on electoral integrity and the role of international, regional, and domestic observer groups in improving electoral practices across the OSCE region.
He has participated in multiple domestic and international observations such as the 2019 local elections in Northern Ireland, the provincial and Water Board elections in The Netherlands, national elections in Austria, as well as being the election coordinator for the 2020 USA midterm elections and 2019 UK general election, Ireland’s 2020 general election, Denmark’s 2021 kommune & regional elections, The Netherlands 2022 and 2023 elections, the Swedish 2022 parliamentary elections, and Finland’s in 2023.
Agnese Cigiliano
Election Inclusion Expert
Agnese is a consultant focusing on learning & development and environmental & social governance. Led by her interest in human rights campaigning, she joined Democracy Volunteers for her first election observation in 2019 for the occasion of the UK General Election. Since then, she has observed several elections in the UK and internationally, including elections in Ireland, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
In 2023, she deepened her collaboration with Democracy Volunteers providing advice on the implementation of ID checks in UK polling stations, bringing together her expertise in EDI and election observation. She continues to focus on the role of diversity in elections, and the impact this can have on the fundamental access to the right to vote and its secrecy.
Reuben Hellier
Head of Election Technology
Reuben Hellier is a data scientist with a strong interest in applying data-driven approaches to election analysis and observation. Having completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Manchester in Computer Science and Mathematics, he has since worked on projects involving data analysis and machine learning applications.
Having initially interned during the July 2024 UK General Election, he has now joined us as Head of Elections Technology, taking ownership of the website and data management for Democracy Volunteers. Reuben has now observed with us in five different countries across the world, supporting the core team across many of these.
Kim Kippen
Elections Administration Expert
Kim Kippen is a Canadian electoral operations specialist with over twenty-five years experience in domestic election administration and on international election observation missions. Her domestic election experience includes a wide variety of operational roles with federal and provincial election management bodies, both at headquarters and in the field. She has held positions as a Returning Officer, Regional Liaison Officer and Field Liaison Officer.
Kim has served as an election administration expert with Democracy Volunteers across multiple national contests, including the Finnish Parliamentary Elections and the UK Westminster General Election in 2019, followed by the Swedish Parliamentary Elections in September 2022, and most recently the Norwegian Parliamentary Elections in 2025.
Ben Sharpe
Deputy Director – Operations
Having completed undergraduate studies at the University of Manchester and then postgraduate research at the University of Leiden, before matriculating as a doctoral student at the University of Exeter in 2024, Ben Sharpe has worked within election administration for several years and monitored elections across a dozen countries on behalf of Democracy Volunteers since 2017.
Ben has a strong interest in finding the ways in which electoral processes operate in practice. The doctoral research which he’s conducting within the Institute of Cornish Studies, at the University of Exeter is to identify possible solutions to the challenges of delivering elections in remote areas of the UK.
Max Wheeler
Deputy Director – Training
Max is a founding member of Democracy Volunteers and has been observing elections since 2013, since then he has observed over 20 elections in 8 countries, mostly in the UK.
As our Head of Training, Max is responsible for making sure all our volunteers know what to look for, how to record their observations, and how to conduct themselves while observing.
He is particularly proud of the video and webinar training we created for the oversees volunteers that joined us for the 2019 General Election and in 2022 is working to create a new suite of election observation online training modules.