About Neil
Neil Makhija serves as Montgomery County Commissioner and Chair of the Board of Elections. He is the first Asian American County Commissioner in Pennsylvania’s history across 67 counties. Montgomery County is Philadelphia’s largest collar county of 865,000 people, more populous than 4 U.S. states and Washington D.C.
As Montgomery County Commissioner, Neil oversees the county’s 3,000 employees and a billion-dollar budget that covers human services, infrastructure, the criminal justice system and the courts, roads and bridges, election administration, and much more.
Since being elected in 2023, Neil has championed innovation in local government and implemented policies to protect voting rights, expand paid leave, combat climate change, invest in indigent defense and data-driven policing, and cut taxes for first-responders.
As Chair of the Board of Elections, Neil is focused on combating election disinformation, pioneering a national standard for voting rights, and ensuring safe and secure elections. Some of Neil’s innovative efforts to expand access to voting include mobile voting sites, creating voting materials in non-dominant languages, and mobile curing, so that no vote is thrown away over a clerical error.
A lifelong democracy defender, Neil has played a critical role in protecting the right to vote in Pennsylvania and nationally, from advising President Biden and Vice President Harris on voting rights to helping reshape Pennsylvania’s gerrymandered state house maps.
Prior to elected office, Neil taught election law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, worked as a consumer protection attorney, and served as the Executive Director of Indian American Impact, a national civic organization.
As an attorney, Neil represented Pennsylvania counties against Big Pharma companies that flooded our communities with opioids and led an early class action against Big Tobacco companies who marketed flavored e-cigarettes to children. His work helped lead to a nationwide ban of flavored e-cigarettes.
Neil earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School on the Horace Lentz Scholarship. He received his B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College.
Neil is the child of Indian immigrants and grew up in Carbon County, a small coal and steel town in Northeast Pennsylvania. He lives with his wife Dr. Rachel Nash, an internal medicine physician, and his son Avinash, in Narberth.