Election Law Update 2026 – Lancaster

Mr. Ford is a partner in the Philadelphia office of Dilworth Paxson LLP, where he founded his firm’s political and election law practice. In his practice, he represents elected officials, candidates, and political committees with respect to ballot access challenges and defenses, election protection and recounts, federal and state campaign finance and other financial disclosures, ethics compliance, political advertising, and defamation litigation. Mr. Ford regularly appears in election cases in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court. At Dilworth, Tim serves on the Diversity Committee and chairs the Election Law Committee, responsible for the firm’s political compliance. Outside work, he is an Adjunct Law Professor at the Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law, teaching Election Law. He also serves as Co-Chair of the Moving Montco Forward Voting Rights and Election Integrity Advisory Committee for Montgomery County Commissioners Jamila Winder and Neil Makhija. He also serves as Solicitor to the Montgomery County Democratic Committee and helped lead election protection efforts in Pennsylvania’s third-largest county in the 2020 presidential election. In that role, Mr. Ford’s argument before the Montgomery County Board of Elections contributed to counting all but 16 out of 4,233 provisional ballots challenged. He is a graduate of Stanford University and the University of Michigan Law School, cum laude, where he served as Executive Editor of the Michigan Law Review. Before entering private practice in Philadelphia, Mr. Ford served as a law clerk to the Honorable Timothy J. Savage on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Michael F. Krimmel was appointed Chief Clerk (now known as Prothonotary) of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania in 2006.Prior to his current position, he served as staff counsel to the Minor Court Rules Committee of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. In 2001, he also served on the staff of the Supreme Court’s Intergovernmental Task Force to Study the District Justice System. Before joining the appellate court staff, Mike worked in the Pennsylvania county courts for 14 years as Special Courts Administrator for the Twenty-third Judicial District (Berks County), and Bail & Pretrial Services Administrator for the Second Judicial District (Lancaster County).While a county court administrator, he was active in the Pennsylvania Association of Court Management (PACM), having served as chair of PACM’s Special Courts Management Committee and as an ex officio member of the Minor Court Rules Committee. Mike currently is an ex officio member of the Appellate Court Procedural Rules Committee, a member of the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Historical Society, and a member of the National Association of Appellate Court Clerks. He is a past president of the St. Thomas More Society of Central Pennsylvania. In addition, he is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association (Administrative Law Section, Appellate Advocacy Committee, and Judicial Administration Committee), and the Dauphin County Bar Association. Mike is the 2023 James S. Bowman Award recipient presented by the PBA Administrative Law Section for leadership and service in Administrative Law. He taught various legal studies courses at area colleges for more than 17 years, and has lectured for various continuing legal education providers. Mike received his J.D. from Widener University Commonwealth Law School, and his B.A. from American University.

Shohin Vance is a shareholder in the Saxton & Stump Appellate Advocacy group, and also contributes his deep experience to the Business Litigation and Strategic Solutions and Regulatory and Government Affairs groups. He is widely recognized across Pennsylvania for his work in politically sensitive and high-stakes litigation, particularly in election law, government disputes, and constitutional matters. Shohin has represented prominent elected officials and legislative bodies, including the Pennsylvania Senate Republican Caucus, in cases that have shaped statewide policy. His work has included challenges to gubernatorial authority during the COVID-19 pandemic, high-profile election disputes, litigation over the legality of skill-based video games, and environmental regulatory matters such as the Delaware River Basin Commission’s fracking ban. He represented clients in matters before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and other state and federal courts. Known for his rapid response in emergency litigation and deep understanding of appellate and procedural rules, Shohin is a trusted advisor to political leaders across the Commonwealth. Before joining Saxton & Stump, Shohin was a partner at a Philadelphia law firm, where he was instrumental in building its influential political law practice. He began his legal career as a law clerk to Chief Justice Thomas G. Saylor of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and now contributes to the integrity of the profession as a member of the Disciplinary Board of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Shohin’s work has been recognized by The Legal Intelligencer, (“Lawyers on the Fast Track,” 2021), Best Lawyers in America® (“Ones to Watch,” 2021–2024), Pennsylvania Super Lawyers (“Rising Star,” 2024), City & State Pennsylvania (“Philadelphia Forty Under 40,” 2022), and “Lawdragon 500 X – The Next Generation” (2023-present). He is a graduate of Penn State Dickinson School of Law, J.D. and University of Scranton, B.S.

Thomas Hicks was confirmed by unanimous consent of the United States Senate on December 16, 2014 to serve on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). He has focused on increasing youth engagement with the voting process and frequently speaks on issues such as cybersecurity, election official safety, and voter access. Under his leadership, the EAC developed a pocket-sized voter card that serves as a guide on voting rights for voters with disabilities.
Prior to his appointment with the EAC, he served on the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on House Administration from 2003 to 2014. He completed the Election Center and Auburn University’s Certified Elections/Registration Administrator (CERA) program. He received his J.D. from the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, and his B.A. in Government from Clark University (Worcester, MA).

Donald Sherman is one of the nation’s leading experts in government ethics, the rule of law and anti-corruption policies, having served as key voice for democratic renewal and accountability outside government and in senior positions in the House, Senate and executive branch.
Since joining CREW in 2018, Donald has championed CREW’s aggressive nonpartisan focus on restoring an ethical government, demanding accountability, preserving democratic institutions and reducing the corrosive influence of money in politics, particularly in light of escalating and unprecedented abuses of government power and the resulting threats to democracy. Donald pioneered CREW’s work to enforce the Constitution’s Disqualification Clause in court for the first time in 150 years.
He has served in several oversight and policy roles in the House, Senate and the White House including as Special Assistant to the President at the White House Domestic Policy Council and Senior Counsel to Ranking Member Claire McCaskill on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Before working in the Senate, Donald was Chief of Staff and Senior Counsel for Oversight and Investigations in the Office of General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He also served in several roles on the House Oversight Committee, including as Chief Oversight Counsel to the Committee’s late Ranking Member and Chairman, Rep. Elijah Cummings. Donald began his career on Capitol Hill as counsel on the non-partisan staff of the House Ethics Committee, where he investigated alleged ethical violations by members of Congress and House employees. Donald also practiced law in the Washington, DC office of Crowell & Moring, LLP and was law clerk to the Honorable Neal E. Kravitz of the District of Columbia Superior Court. Donald is a cum laude graduate of Georgetown University and earned his Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Donald has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, a Center for Effective Government Fellow at the University of Chicago, a US Japan Leadership Program Fellow and a Wasserstein Fellow at Harvard University Law School.

Marian K. Schneider is an experienced voting rights advocate, lawyer and litigator in the nonprofit democracy space where she represents individual voters, and nonprofit civic engagement organizations. From 2021-2025, Schneider was the Senior Policy Counsel for Voting Rights at the ACLU of Pennsylvania. Currently, Schneider is an adjunct faculty member and teaches “Voting Rights and Election Administration” at the Charles Widger School of Law at Villanova University. Schneider’s career in voting rights has included working for the Brennan Center for Justice’s Voting Rights and Elections team and as the President of the national nonprofit, Verified Voting.
From 2015 to 2017, Schneider served in the administration of Governor Tom Wolf as the Deputy Secretary for Elections and Administration in the Pennsylvania Department of State. Schneider’s signature accomplishment at PA DOS was the launch of Pennsylvania’s online voter registration application. Schneider advanced numerous pro voter reforms while at PA DOS, including increasing language accessibility for non-English speakers, improving voter education efforts, and promoting training for elections officials to respectfully serve voters with disabilities. Schneider served as the Pennsylvania state election official on the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission’s Standards Board and was a member of the Pennsylvania Advisory Committee on Voting Technology to the Joint State Government Commission of the Pennsylvania General Assembly.
Schneider was co-lead trial counsel in Applewhite v. Commonwealth, successfully challenging Pennsylvania’s restrictive photo ID law as an unconstitutional infringement on the fundamental right to vote. In 2010, she litigated a successful case under § 2 of the Voting Rights Act against Chester County to relocate the inadequate polling location that caused 6-8 hour waiting times and disenfranchised Blackvoters in the 2008 presidential election. While at the ACLU, Schneider was co-counsel in voting rights cases from 2021 through the 2024 election cycle, which included, among others, legal and constitutional issues involving Pennsylvania’s recently-enacted mail voting law, constitutional right to privacy issues, open meeting laws, open records law and the Materiality Provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Schneider has served on several boards and committees, including Pitt Cyber’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Pennsylvania Election Security and the National Task Force on Election Crises in 2020. She was a member of the Board of the Philadelphia Lawyers Chapter of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and chaired their Judicial Recommendations Working Group. Schneider is a frequent speaker on voting rights and election administration issues and is quoted in the press – most notably by Politico, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Salon, Wired, GovTech and NPR.
Schneider earned her B.A. cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and received her J.D. from the George Washington University Law School where she was a member of the Law Review. She is a member of the Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia bars.

Kadida Kenner, a tireless advocate for social and economic justice, is the founding CEO of both the New PA Project Education Fund (C3) and the New Pennsylvania Project (C4). Her driving motivation is to empower the electorate to enthusiastically participate in every election, casting their votes all the way down the entire ballot.
Kadida has spearheaded initiatives to prevent the passage of a judicial gerrymandering constitutional amendment, advocate for a higher minimum wage, secure fair funding for public education, and protect both federal and state courts from problematic judicial nominees and extremist efforts to undermine their independence.
In addition to her work with the New Pennsylvania Project, Kadida co-chairs Why Courts Matter – Pennsylvania, an advocacy project dedicated to safeguarding the independence of our state and federal courts and educating the electorate about their crucial role.
Before her career in issue advocacy, Kadida worked as a director, producer, and writer for HBCU sports television programming, creating both live and scripted content in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia. A graduate of Temple University, Kadida resides in Chester County and draws inspiration from civil rights organizing icon and West Chester, Pennsylvania native, Bayard Rustin, one of her civil rights heroes.

Kathy Boockvar is President of Athena Strategies LLC, working with a broad base of organizations, government officials, and institutions to strengthen election security and democracy and amplify understanding and civil discourse about elections in the U.S. She also serves as Senior Advisor to the Brennan Center for Justice and the Institute for Responsive Government. Boockvar previously served as Pennsylvania Secretary of State and chief election official, leading the statewide agency to implement secure and resilient elections, protect the health and safety of the public through professional licensure, and support economic development. Prior to serving as Secretary, Boockvar was Senior Advisor to the Governor on Election Modernization, where she worked closely with local, state, and federal officials to strengthen election security and technology. During her tenure, Boockvar co-chaired Pennsylvania’s Inter-Agency Election Security and Preparedness Workgroup, strengthened election security and voting rights measures across the state, and oversaw secure and accessible elections amidst a global pandemic, marked by unparalleled transparency and voter participation.
Boockvar also served as co-chair of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) Elections Committee from 2019-2020; co-chair of the NASS Business Services Committee from 2020-2021; and NASS Representative on the Election Infrastructure Subsector Government Coordinating Council (EIS-GCC), a collaboration among federal, state, and local officials to secure elections and ensure timely sharing of threat information, support, and resources.
Prior to launching Athena Strategies, Boockvar was Vice President of Election Operations for the Center for Internet Security, where she led its election security initiatives, working closely with
federal, state, and local officials. Earlier in her career, she spent more than two decades as an attorney and executive leader in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, including as Executive Director of a women’s health nonprofit, Chief Counsel for the Pennsylvania Auditor General, a voting-rights attorney for a national civil rights nonprofit, and a private practice attorney focused on employment and health law. Boockvar began her career as a nonprofit Legal Services attorney, representing low-income, disabled, and senior clients, and victims of domestic violence.
Boockvar serves on many boards and committees, including as Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Center for Civic Design, the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Election Science Task Force, and
is a founding member of the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections (CSSE), a cross-sector collaboration of election officials, law enforcement, federal agencies, and nonpartisan organizations working to help protect election workers, voters, and infrastructure.
Boockvar has received many awards and honors including the 2025 CSSE CAPE award; 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award from the American University, Washington College of Law; City & State 2023 Responsible 100 Honoree; Salute to Women Who Make a Difference Honoree; and SmartCEO Brava Award. She is a frequent speaker and writer and has appeared in a wide range of media, including Meet the Press, Good Morning America, Soledad O’Brien, Michael Smerconish, Washington Post, New York Times, National Public Radio, Wall Street Journal, The Hill, Associated Press, CNN, Rolling Stone, Politico, Reuters, USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer, and many more. Boockvar is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (B.A. 1990) and the American University, Washington College of Law (J.D. 1993). She received a GIAC GISF Certification in Cybersecurity Fundamentals in 2022, and a Performance Leadership Certificate from Cornell University in 2014. She is a member of the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court, Third Circuit Court of Appeals, U.S. District Courts, and Pennsylvania, New York, and Washington, D.C. courts.