Appointed members serving from 2022-2023
ARMANDO SALUD
Salud is a Certified Elections/Registration Administrator, as well as a California Registered Election Official and the Deputy of Elections for Yolo County, California. Salud started his career in Elections Administration in 2009 when he was hired by the Elections Division of the California Secretary of State. His career continued when hired to the Elections Department of Sacramento County, California in 2014. Salud joined Yolo County in 2017 as an Elections Manager and has reached a recent achievement in his Elections-focused career in early 2021 when appointed Deputy of Elections. Nationally, Armando currently serves as the Board Chair of the Election Center’s Professional Education Program Board, which advances best practices in election administration and was recently appointed to the National Voter Registration Day Steering Committee a group of diverse and bipartisan group of civic leaders which guides its work. In California, he also serves as a County Designee Advisor for the California Secretary of State - Language Accessibility Advisory Committee.
DEAN LOGAN
Dean Logan is the Registrar of Voters and County Clerk for Los Angeles County.
DEANNA KITAMURA
INDERBIR SINGH
JACQUELINE COTO
Jacqueline Coto serves as the State Director of Civic Engagement Policy for NALEO Educational Fund, where she advocates for the Latino community and works on election policy reform to strengthen civic engagement across the state of California. Most recently, Jacqueline was responsible for developing, managing, and leading the California Redistricting initiative and L.A. County Redistricting. Her work includes California Census 2020 efforts and the implementation of the Voter’s Choice Act election system in Los Angeles County. Jacqueline serves as the co-chair on the Los Angeles County RR/CC Community Voter Outreach Committee and has several years of experience working in top field positions with both a State Assemblymember and LAUSD School Board Member. She also has worked as a consultant on various policy programs, including a parent leadership initiative, and best practices to increase the workforce pipeline of employees successfully pursuing postsecondary education. She grew up in South L.A. and put herself through school while working full-time, becoming a first-generation college student. After 12 years in the Human Resources field, she began her career in macro social work, desiring to make a difference in matters of social justice and systems change. Jacqueline received her two master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Social Work and Public Administration with a concentration on public policy. Her professional interests in public service opportunities aim to create better living conditions for marginalized communities, particularly committed to the advancement of underserved populations.
JANET BERNABE, Co-Chair
Being an appointed committee member (March 2023- Present) for Riverside County Election Advisory Committee EAC, a board member for the League of Women Voters LWV Riverside Board of Directors (June 2021-Present) and the President of the League of United Latin American Citizens of Riverside Community Service Foundation (January 2022- Present) has given Bernabe invaluable insight and knowledge on how to approach and create a robust language access program designed to assist voters with limited-English proficiency and participate fully in the electoral process. Bernabe completed her M.A. in American Studies and a dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Chicana/o Studies and Political Studies at California State University, Fullerton CSUF in which she gained knowledge on the history, challenges, and experiences of underrepresented communities, specifically communities of color with limited-English proficiency.
JEFFREY REEDER
Dr. Reeder is the Dean of the College of Humanities at the California State University, Northridge, with offerings in nearly a dozen languages as well as nationally renowned programs in ethnic studies and identity studies. He has extensive direct experience as a translator and interpreter in Spanish and Portuguese and has also taught courses in translation and interpreting.
JUAN PABLO CERVANTES
Juan Pablo Cervantes is the Registrar of Voters and County Clerk for Humboldt County.
KARDUZ NGUYEN
Karduz is a first-generation immigrant and the founder and executive director of Vietnamese Language Access (VietLA), which aims to promote Vietnamese arts and culture and provide language services for people with limited English proficiency. Karduz has worked with various nonprofit organizations and public institutions as a college advisor, ESL teacher, interpreter/translator, scholarship reader, and cross-cultural mentor. He is passionate about providing greater access to higher education and language services for historically underrepresented communities. Karduz is a graduate of UC Berkeley and holds a certificate in teaching English as a foreign language.
NAINDEEP SINGH
Naindeep Singh is the Executive Director of the Jakara Movement. Formed and raised in the Central Valley, he earned advanced graduate degrees at UCLA and Johns Hopkins University. He is currently a school trustee with Central Unified School District in Fresno County.
PAUL BURKE
Paul Burke chairs the Committee on Political Action for the NAACP of Ventura County. He has been a bilingual poll worker in Ventura County, a poll worker in West Virginia, and an election supervisor in Bosnia. He manages Lang1234.info which fosters free online language learning in over 300 languages. He also manages VoteWell.net, which explains election procedures in plain language.
PEDRO HERNANDEZ, Co-Chair
Pedro Hernandez is Legal and Policy Director for California Common Cause. Born and raised in Watsonville, California, he attended Cabrillo College, earned his bachelor’s degree in political science, with a minor in American Studies, from the University of California, Davis, and J.D. from the UC College of the Law, San Francisco. He currently serves as Vice-Chair of the Fair Campaign Practices Commission for the City of Berkeley, and on the Board of Directors of Dolores Street Community Services.
RAMAL LAMAR-EL
Ramal Lamar-El does voter education and advocacy for about 600,000 residents throughout California who identify as African-American and speak Niger Congo (African language) to ensure that linguistic rights are not violated and that equity is provided in the electoral process. This work began 1995 and work continues now as a Sheik of the Moorish Science Temple of America; teaching his people about their nationality and their sacred obligation of proclaiming their free national name to vote in a free national ballot under the laws of the government.
SAVALIOLEFILEMU (VAL) TO’OMALATAI LIHANG JACOBO
Tulou le paia ma le mamalu o le aofia. Ou te fa’atalofa atu ma le agaga fa’afetai mo le avanoa. Greetings! Jacobo is an Oceanian from the sea of islands in the Pacific and a descendent of Le Afioga I le Alosina, To’omalatai Faaagi mai le Malae o Matagofie i Matautu tai, Samoa. She honors Tovaangar, the traditional homelands of the Tongva people also known as the greater Los Angeles region where she currently lives with her husband and three children; where she works as a Principal Program Manager in Community Health at Blue Shield of California (BSC) and where she earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees. She is grateful to the Tongva and Ajachemen for accepting her as a guest on their lands and acknowledge their sovereign rights as original stewards, past, present, and emerging. She learned how to speak and write fluently in the Samoan language from her mother, her aiga (family) and nu’u (village). She learned how to interpret and translate Samoan indigenous references and has assisted in the preservation of the Samoan language through global collaboration and leading up to her recent appointment in LAAC. Her lifelong work centers ancestral accountability in the context of inclusion of Indigenous references and she drives community-integrated health equity solutions at BSC.
