About Next Election Services

Andrew Young

Principal Software Architect, Co-Founder

Andrew Young brings 30 years of experience building and securing the systems that power elections. His public-sector career began in the Payroll and Accounts Payable divisions of the Skagit County, Washington Auditor's Office, where his work contributed to the county earning a Certificate of Excellence in Financial Reporting. He was later appointed Deputy Auditor, managing the Elections, Vehicle Licensing, and Property Records departments, and in that role led the county's acquisition of its first modern ballot tabulation and voter registration systems.

That work led him to VOTEC Corporation in San Diego, where he spent the next three decades as Product Manager for VEMACS, a comprehensive election management system. Under his direction, VEMACS grew from a basic voter registration tool supporting a handful of local jurisdictions into a full-featured platform used by more than 150 counties nationwide, including five of the 20 most populous in the country. He designed browser-based applications using Oracle APEX, SQL, and Python, and built out the company's IT infrastructure from the ground up — networks, servers, and cloud environments across AWS and Oracle Cloud.

In August 2025, Andrew co-founded Next Election Services alongside six colleagues from VOTEC, bringing that experience to a new generation of election technology.

Andrew holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from Western Washington University. He is trusted to work with sensitive personally identifiable information and critical infrastructure, and is a published co-author of Learning Pascal Step by Step (Computer Science Press, 1985).

Randy Propp

Customer Liaison, Co-Founder

Randy Propp has spent more than 25 years working at the intersection of local government and business operations.

Randy began his career in 1998 with the Weld County Clerk and Recorder's Election Department, where he advanced to Election Department Manager, administering voter registrations, programming and testing the county's tabulation system, and coordinating with political parties and the Colorado Secretary of State's office during election periods. In 2003, he joined VOTEC Corporation, a company providing election software to county governments nationwide, where he spent 22 years advancing from Customer Support to Director of Operations and, ultimately, President. In that role, he oversaw human resources, payroll, accounting, IT infrastructure, and customer contracts, while serving as a trusted advisor to county election and clerk offices across the country — helping stabilize high-stakes processes and restore public confidence. He brought that same security-first mindset to hands-on study at events like the DEF CON Voting Village. That experience has shaped the way Randy approaches his work: understanding that election administration is as much about trust as it is about technology. He believes in asking the hard questions and doing the careful, sometimes unglamorous work that keeps elections running smoothly and keeps public confidence intact — an approach grounded in integrity, accountability, and service to community.

Outside of work, Randy enjoys spending time with his family, cooking, watching movies, and traveling — along with the little adventures that come with his Bull Terrier pup, Magnus. He's recently taken a big interest in baking, and loves experimenting with new variations on baked goods.

Jonathan Dulany

Principal Software Architect, NXTAssets, Co-Founder

Jonathan serves as Principal Software Architect for Next Election Services, where he has played a significant role in developing NXTAssets and shaping its architecture. His work draws on years of experience both building election technology and working directly within election administration.

Prior to co-founding Next Election Services, Jonathan joined VOTEC, bringing his experience as both an election professional and software engineer to the private sector, where he continued to develop election technology focused on asset management and operational efficiency.

His foundation in election technology was built during his years with Harris County, Texas, one of the largest election jurisdictions in the country. During his tenure, he managed the Elections IT Department and worked across numerous aspects of election administration, including election-night data reconciliation, voting equipment management and delivery, election coding, database management, and process automation. While at Harris County, Jonathan also designed and developed an inventory management application built to handle the complex movement and status of election equipment. His work included system architecture, routing, reporting and auditing functionality, as well as the user interface used to manage equipment throughout the election process.

Brett Kappenman

Chief Technology Officer, Co-Founder

Brett Kappenman serves as the Chief Technology Officer of Next Election Services, LLC, a position he assumed in September 2025. In this role, he directs the company's technical strategy, IT operations, and cloud systems architecture supporting election-focused products and services. He manages secure, high-availability enterprise environments, with a primary focus on Oracle and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) platforms.

Prior to his appointment as CTO, Brett gained experience in the election technology industry while managing secure cloud and internal infrastructure across complex enterprise networks. Before his focus on election systems, he spent over five years at Amazon in senior engineering and project management roles. During this time, he delivered global infrastructure automation, data visualization platforms, and cloud cost optimization models.

Earlier in his career, Brett held engineering positions at Microsoft, where he worked on enterprise infrastructure. He also spent over six years as a Senior Network Administrator managing multi-site security infrastructure and firewalls for high-security environments.

Sarah Mauzeralle

Chief Financial Officer, Co-Founder

As Chief Financial Officer, Sarah Mauzeralle brings more than 25 years of experience in accounting and finance to Next Election Services, LLC. Working almost exclusively at an accounting firm gave her insight into how hundreds of businesses across a broad range of industries operated and made decisions. Over the course of her career, she has overseen financial reporting and multi-state compliance, resolved complex audit and tax discrepancies, helped clients avoid thousands of dollars in unnecessary costs, and developed forecasts and planning models for leadership.

Her love of numbers was inherited from her father, a CPA who co-founded an accounting firm with her mother. That early introduction to accounting taught her that numbers rarely tell the whole story—she is drawn to giving them context and a distinctly human voice. She sees financial information as a record of real choices, pressures, and consequences, not merely figures on a page. Her approach reflects a commitment to accuracy and transparency, along with a belief that understanding an answer is every bit as important as having one.

In her downtime, Sarah follows her curiosity wherever it leads, whether into a historical documentary, the mysteries of quantum mechanics, or down an unfamiliar back road, camera in hand, in search of scenic landscapes. She is equally content losing a Sunday afternoon in the kitchen, where she channels her French heritage through generous amounts of butter.

Trevor Hayward

Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder

Trevor Hayward is the Chief Executive Officer of Next Election Services, where he leads the company's mission to deliver secure, reliable election technology to support the successful and accessible conduct of U.S. elections. He guides both the company's strategy and technical direction.

Trevor brings deep election-technology and enterprise-architecture experience to the role. Prior to founding Next Election Services, he served as Chief Executive Officer of VOTEC Corporation, and before that led the company's enterprise architecture and the development of its Asset Management product line.

Earlier in his career, Trevor founded CaseIntel Corporation in 2002 and served as its CEO through 2017. Under his leadership, CaseIntel delivered consulting and product solutions to the public and private electrical utility sector across the United States using NetGIS, an Oracle-based geospatial application that provided electrical utility network engineering organizations with advanced mapping and connectivity tools.

Trevor began his career at Oracle Corporation, where he held consulting and product management roles from 1986 through 1999 — serving as a Practice Director and founder of the company's global Business Process Reengineering consulting practice.