Farbod Faraji

Counsel, Protect Democracy
Farbod Faraji is Protect Democracy’s top programmatic director on protecting future elections. Until recently, he was also leading long-term structural reform work through litigation and other forms of advocacy. While at Protect Democracy, he has worked on efforts to re-enfranchise citizens previously convicted of felonies and prevent state and local voter intimidation efforts. Before joining Protect Democracy, Farbod was a Gibbons Fellow in Public Interest & Constitutional Law, where he worked on impact litigation cases in the areas of racial justice, immigration, and national security. He previously served as a law clerk to the Honorable Jacqueline Nguyen of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Kimba Wood of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Farbod holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School and a B.A. from Stanford University.
Protect Democracy is dedicated to preventing American democracy from declining into a more authoritarian form of government and creating a secure, multiracial democracy in the United States.

Protect Democracy is a nonpartisan, anti-authoritarianism nonprofit that has been called “the most important guard dog of democracy’s red lines.” The group’s experts and advocates use tools like litigation, legislative and communication strategies, technology, and critical research to protect elections, defend the rule of law, combat dis-information, and build the democracy of tomorrow. Informed by advisers who have studied the playbook that modern authoritarians follow, Protect Democracy has assembled a multiphased strategy. Phase One requires preventing the corruption and subversion of future elections. Phase Two requires bolstering our democratic institutions to be more resilient should a future authoritarian gain power. Phase Three involves addressing the structural and cultural factors inflating the political power and appeal of authoritarianism. As an example of their impact, Time Magazine credited the group as being a key part of a “determined campaign” that “saved the 2020 election” by helping to prevent state legislative overrides, stopping the Justice Department from improperly interfering, and winning the media narrative over false claims of fraud.

Protect Democracy is building toward a thriving democracy for the next generation where elections are free, fair, and trusted; checks and balances guard against authoritarian overreach; facts and honest disagreement, not dis-information, shape public opinion; and the U.S. is back on the path to a free, pluralist, multiracial self-government.