Deb Markowitz was elected Vermont's 37th Secretary of State in 1998. Although she had never run for elective office before, Deb beat a two term incumbent to become the first woman to be elected Secretary of State in Vermont.

Deb has a distinguished record of achievement. She is widely recognized for making it easier to start and expand businesses in Vermont. She eliminated a backlog of professional licensing complaints in the Office of Professional Regulation and she strengthened the office's prosecutions to protect Vermonters from neglect, fraud and abuse.

Deb has made it a priority to improve Vermont's democracy and promote good citizenship. She successfully and economically implemented an ambitious election reform agenda, making it easier to vote and harder to cheat in Vermont. Vermont's innovative approach to meeting the needs of people with disabilities without using controversial computer voting machines is a model for the rest of the country. By relying on state employees rather than costly contracts to build and implement a statewide voter registration database Deb was able to put 11 million dollars of federal grant money into an elections trust fund to help offset the costs to our cities and towns of future changes to our election systems.

Deb believes in the power and responsibility of citizens and communities to come together to solve problems. That is why she has focused on getting civics education back into Vermont's schools. That is also why Deb has spent much of her time working with town officials and citizens to help them resolve problems in their communities - whether it is about wind towers in Searsburg, crime in Rutland, or the inability of the clerk and selectboard to work together in Fairfax.

Deb is a champion of open and accountable government. She fought attempts to weaken our public records laws, championed legislation to enable Vermont's communities to adopt binding ethics policies, and she was instrumental in strengthening the laws that preserve important government records. At the same time, she established the Safe at Home program to protect victims of domestic violence from being tracked down through public records. An e-government leader, Markowitz's state-of-the-art website receives more than 35,000 hits each day.

Deb has served on the Vermont Girl Scout Council, the Central Vermont Community Action Agency, and the Vermont Women's Business Center Advisory Board. She has also served on the advisory board of the Federal Election Assistance Commission and is past president of the National Association of Secretaries of State. Deb was recently honored as a Rodel Fellow by the Aspen Institute.

Deb graduated from the University of Vermont and received her law degree from Georgetown University. Deb and her husband Paul live in Montpelier with their three children.