Nate Persily

Nathaniel Persily is a leading authority on election law and constitutional democracy. He holds the James B. McClatchy Professorship at Stanford Law School and serves as co-director of the Stanford Law AI Initiative. Persily also holds appointments in the departments of Political Science, Communication, and the Freeman Spogli Institute.

A scholar of constitutional law, election law, and the democratic process, Persily has built a career at the intersection of legal theory and democratic governance. His scholarship and legal practice focus on American election law, often referred to as the law of democracy, which addresses voting rights, political parties, campaign finance, redistricting, and election administration. Persily is coauthor of the casebook "The Law of Democracy," which covers topics such as voting rights, political party regulation, campaign finance, redistricting, and election administration. In addition to numerous articles, many cited by the Supreme Court, his work spans the legal regulation of political parties, the census and redistricting process, voting rights, and campaign finance reform. His scholarship has appeared in Columbia Law Review, New York University Law Review, Harvard Law Review, Southern California Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Yale Law Journal, and Georgetown Law Journal. He has also written on election law for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Politico.

Persily's expertise has been called upon by government and the judiciary. He has served as a special master or court-appointed expert to craft congressional or legislative districting plans for Georgia, Maryland, Connecticut, New York, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. He also served as senior research director for the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. Persily won the Robert A. Gorman Award for Excellence in Teaching at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and a study found he was among the most widely cited legal scholars in election law. Prior to joining Stanford, Persily taught at Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and as a visiting professor at Harvard, New York University, Princeton, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Melbourne.

Persily has emerged as a prominent scholar on the intersection of technology, social media, and democracy. His work in this area has earned him recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow, Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He is co-editor of "Social Media and Democracy: The State of the Field and Prospects for Reform" and "The Digitalist Papers: Artificial Intelligence and Democracy in America." Persily cochairs the Presidential Task Force on Artificial Intelligence of the American Political Science Association and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as a commissioner on the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age. Persily's expertise spans courtroom practice, legislative policy, and emerging technology, making him a recognized voice on the future of democratic institutions, election law, and the impact of artificial intelligence and social media on democracy.