Name:                              Wyatt Horan Gender:                            Male Candidate:                        International Treasurer Member since:                  2018 Country/Countries:          UK Note - Candidate statement submitted after deadline Biography: For three years, I led voter outreach efforts at Stanford University, registering thousands of students and bringing the university from below the national average for voter participation to the third highest voting campus in the nation (by percentage). For the 2016 election, I organized student cohorts to canvas Carson and Clark Counties in Nevada, where Democrats eked out narrow victories for Senator Cortez Masto, and Representative Titus (as well as Secretary Clinton) that would not have been possible without the incredible work of volunteer canvassers. Since moving to the United Kingdom, I’ve worked at an American software company partnering with international governments to improve their response to terrorism without sacrificing privacy and civil liberties. I’ve also led a team at my company as we built out an incident tracking tool to support humanitarian aid relief crews in Syria.

Describe your volunteer work with DA and cite your greatest DA accomplishment.

As a recent graduate, and a new immigrant to the United Kingdom, I have not been a member of the DA for long. I didn’t know about the organization until recently. More American expatriates should know about the valuable work that the DA strives to do. As a result, I’m running to increase the visibility of the organization, and to spur greater efforts for voter participation for Americans abroad.

Why are you running for this office?

The world rejected globalism when I graduated. I fully embrace the opposite as I began my career: I’ve worked for an American technology company in the United Kingdom, partnering with a French client to improve their work based out of Vietnam and Singapore. The world will remain global, but I’ve begun to see firsthand the challenges in overcoming cultural barriers for a common goal.

After flooding in West Virginia’s coal country in 2017, I volunteered with Team Rubicon, a volunteer service of veterans who continue to serve by helping communities following a natural disaster. There too, I saw wide cultural gaps between my own upbringing and a community of hard working miners whose town had been set back by the American opioid epidemic and a faltering demand for coal.

I’m running for this office because the America I know has more than one face. As an American organization abroad, we need be honest with the America we are even as we continue to push Americans to participate in the process that can American as it could be. I’m running to encourage Americans abroad to continue to feel a stake in the country’s success by participating in its democratic processes.

How will your skill sets and experience contribute to DA's success?

I’ll bring technological savvy for improved voter outreach efforts and a vigor for overachieving.

Are there any DA organizational or practical issues (not political goals) that you would like to address should you be elected?

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What are the three pressing political issues that you would work to include in the DA 2020 Platform and why?

Voter outreach, election participation, and empathy for Americans abroad that their voices are being heard.

How can Democrats Abroad best raise our profile among American voters abroad and better work to elect Democrats?

We need to establish metrics for voter outreach abroad. This requires knowing how many Americans we haven’t set up for voting success: We need to know who we’re not reaching in order to critically evaluate our success.