Paul Simon Democracy Prize Winners | Paul Simon Public Policy Institute | SIU

VanKevia Garner from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Ms. Garner will develop a podcast series that explores the restoration of voting rights for people with criminal records and encourages civic engagement among previously incarcerated people.

Lylee Gibbs from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Ms. Gibbs will continue to develop the Saluki Local Reporting Lab at SIU. Her project will focus on telling local news stories about southern Illinois, specifically in Alexander County, which is the poorest county in Illinois.

Keara Gray from Illinois State University. Ms. Gray will organize community conversations on current civic issues and create a special website with local election-related information.

Saqlain Khurshid and Lyndsay Jones from Illinois State University. Ms. Jones and Mr. Khurshid will develop an analytic model to predict voting probability among ISU students. The model will target students who are less likely to vote with relevant information via an AI-driven chatbot on ISU's Center for Civic Engagement website.