Leslie Graves

Leslie Graves is the founder and CEO of Ballotpedia, the nonprofit online political encyclopedia of American politics.

Education Graves has a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland. She did graduate work in philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

She co-authored "Is indeterminism the source of the statistical character of evolutionary theory?" in the Philosophy of Science and wrote "Transgressive traditions and art definitions" for the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.

Early career In 1980, Graves collected signatures to qualify the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate, Ed Clark, for a spot on the ballot. She later served as Wisconsin chair of the Libertarian Party, and as the party's national finance chair.

Ballotpedia In 2007, Graves founded the Lucy Burns Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that publishes Ballotpedia. In 2012, Graves authored a guidebook titled Local Ballot Initiatives: How citizens change laws with clipboards, conversations, and campaigns.

Graves' political analysis has been included in the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg News, Campaigns and Elections, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Judgepedia was originally launched in 2007 by the Chicago-based nonprofit, Sam Adams Alliance. Graves was "busy at that time with WikIFOIA,"

Personal life Leslie is one of five children of Robert and Derry Graves. Her older sister is now-deceased Olympic rower and gold-medalist Carie Graves. In 1998, all four Graves sisters (Carie, Leslie, Tia, and Alison) competed in team rowing at the Nike Master's World Games under the name "Team Four Sisters."