The "Hands Off Our Vote" initiative is a national action plan designed to defend voting rights and hold power accountable by galvanizing communities around the message that voters—not leaders—decide the future. The strategy emphasizes building sustained defiance against threats to election integrity through several core imperatives: strengthening voter resolve, protecting communities from federal interference, normalizing early voting, and preparing for collective mass action to ensure all votes are counted.

About this event

Voters decide—not billionaires, not dark money, not lobbyists.  Every meeting with a local election official, town hall, precinct walk, or accountability action becomes an opportunity to show that community members are standing up. These actions, both big and small, build the organizing muscle we need to protect our elections and become part of a powerful narrative that people across the country are coming together to protect our freedom and demand fair elections.

In this webinar, you will learn about actions you can take in order to build momentum and make the statement: ‘We the people’ will vote in record numbers and that the will of the people prevail in November and beyond.

Kenia Morales

Kenia is a long-time organizer based out of Las Vegas, NV, with 20 years of experience as a strategist and practitioner overseeing complex organizations, leading successful programs and coalitions, and winning campaigns in battleground states. Her work focuses on strengthening leaders, strategies, and systems. She currently supports the Election Safeguards Response Network, a national and multistate coalition with the goal of: (1) detecting election threats early, (2) deterring attacks before they become red lines, and (3) executing rapid coordinated responses to counter election sabotage.

Most recently, she served as the Chief of Staff at Equis, a set of organizations working to create a better understanding and engagement of Latinos, where she led the team during an exponential period of rapid growth. During the 2020 cycle, she served as the National Director for Win Justice, a cross-movement collaboration between Community Change Action, Color of Change PAC, SEIU, and Planned Parenthood Votes that mobilized over 5.3M million voters across battleground states. Before that, she served as the Nevada Director for America Votes, where she grew the coalition’s footprint and played a key role in electing Democratic leaders up and down the ballot. Kenia has worked at the local, state, and national levels. In her career, she has defeated harmful reproductive health ballot measures, worked to elect pro-police reform mayors, advanced healthcare access for communities of color, and defeated state senate recalls. She brings deep experience in building out programs from the bottom up.

Lisa Finn

Lisa Finn became an activist in her Third Act.  In her second act she served in the Peace Corps and had a shop that sold things from the western pacific islands.  She started out as an environmental activist working against the Mountain Valley Pipeline.  She met other older folks out there just as Third Act was starting up and  became part of Third Act Virginia.  It was a very comfortable fit.  She helped form Third Act DMV (DC, MD, and VA) to help the fight for democracy and environment on the national level at our nation’s capital.

Gail Nordheim

Gail Nordheim has been a climate and democracy advocate since 2016. Active with Third Act Colorado (TACO) since its 2024 launch, she serves as Democracy Liaison on the Coordinating Committee, leads TACO’s Immigration and Domestic Militarization Action Team, and co-publishes the weekly “Take Action Tuesday” newsletter, which suggests ways that TACO members take action for our climate and democracy.

Additionally, Gail is the Board Chair of 350 Colorado and serves on the Safe & Healthy Colorado steering committee. She served as Board President of 350 Wisconsin before moving to Colorado in 2023.

Her career includes years as an analyst and manager in Wisconsin government, followed by founding a management consulting firm focused on nonprofits and long-term care. She  and her husband live in Denver. She has  two adult children and three grandchildren.

Picture of Mike Johnson

Mike Johnson

Mike Johnson is Third Act’s Democracy Campaigns Manager, focusing on mobilizing Third Actors to engage in our political process through coalition building, advocacy, and elections. With a background in municipal politics and public policy, Mike spent his career working with grassroots groups, organized labor, and independent political movements to build power from city hall to state legislatures and win elections. A student of social movements, he is inspired to fight for a better world every day, building on the promise of the leaders and elders who came before him.

Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, and a founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 to work on climate and racial justice. He founded the first global grassroots climate campaign, 350.org, and serves as the Schumann Distinguished Professor in Residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. In 2014 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel,’ in the Swedish Parliament. He’s also won the Gandhi Peace Award, and honorary degrees from 19 colleges and universities. He has written more than twenty books about the environment, including his first, The End of Nature, published in 1989, The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened, and his latest book is Here Comes The Sun.

About ESRN

The Election Safeguards Response Network (ESRN) is a non-partisan convening and collaboration space: a coalition of national, state, and local-based partners at the forefront of identifying, planning for, and responding to those trying to undermine our elections