Candidate for Vice-Chair
Liz Voss (Basel)
I have been an active member of the DACH ExCom since joining as replacement Secretary in May 2017, being reelected in 2019, and becoming Vice Chair effective January 2020. I have worked hard to assist the other members of the ExCom, as well as my local Basel chapter, and members around the country, with tasks including event planning and promotion, voter registration, and fundraising and donation tracking. With my degree in Business Admin and minor in Management Information Systems, I am able to handle digital organization with ease. I have managed the new members as well as overseen the annual membership verification process, keeping our records accurate while handling record membership growth. I organize the Google Drive where we store our documents. I also take minutes at our ExCom, AGM, and supplementary meetings, distributing them afterwards via email and in Slack.
In addition, I traveled to Spain for our EMEA regional meeting and Japan for the international AGM in 2018 and to Athens for the EMEA regional meeting in 2019, all of which were educational, fun, and memorable trips, as well as the virtual DPCA global meeting in early 2020.
I have started a local Swiss caucus focusing on voting rights, which will include working with the international Voting Rights Committee moving forward. I also served on the Compliance Committee and helped develop comprehensive compliance tools and materials to ensure that DACH is doing everything we can to follow rules and regulations regarding donations.
I believe that my (almost) four years on the current ExCom have been successful and I hope to build on that success in the next two years.
Candidate for Secretary
Kristen Sharp (Aargau)
I am running for the position of Executive Secretary because I believe that I can help Democrats in Switzerland. I have professional experience working as a Democracy Coordinator in a UK university, taking and preparing minutes for student government executive meetings and AGMs, coordinating democratic elections and welcoming students into student government. In addition I was a volunteer community organizer for my community college, registering over 1000 new voter registrations in 2002 and helping to support a variety of student cultural events and campaigns. Most recently I have also been a database coordinator for Financial Compliance and am comfortable with database administration, working with confidential information and large datasets.
More importantly, I have been a democratic supporter since 1993 and was a founding member of the Socks the First Cat fan club. My particular interests include gender and racial equality, abortion rights and environmental issues. I am passionate about making the world a fairer and safer place for my daughter (1 year old). I believe that through service and hard work, you can improve the lives of the people you come in contact with, and I would love for my daughter to see me working on behalf of the American citizens here in Switzerland.
Thank you for taking the time to read this statement and considering me for this important position.
Candidate for Treasurer
Meli Hughes (Basel)
I am currently the Treasurer of DA Switzerland, and have been an active member of Democrats Abroad since I moved to Basel five years ago. I am committed to doing whatever I can to make sure that Americans abroad have a voice in the US political process.
I have an MBA from the Stern School of Business (NYU). I worked for two years as an auditor for Arthur Andersen, then worked for Bayer Pharmaceuticals for 12 years where I developed and analyzed budgets for the Marketing and Sales organizations. After I stopped working to raise my family, I was the treasurer for the PTA at my children’s school. I would be happy to serve as treasurer for Democrats Abroad, Switzerland.