STATE ADMINISTERED UOCAVA SURVEY PILOT
To improve the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) voting process through partnerships with state and local election offices and support independent data collection by states and jurisdictions, FVAP piloted the State Administered UOCAVA Survey (SAUS) pilot. The pilot focused on assisting states and jurisdictions in fielding a customer satisfaction survey of their UOCAVA voters to better understand the experiences of this population during the 2022 General Election voting process.
To assess the feasibility of this effort, FVAP designed the pilot recommending no more than five
states and jurisdictions of different UOCAVA population sizes. The Council of State Governments (CSG) Overseas Voting Initiative (OVI) recruited states and localities, provided communications support, hosted the SAUS survey through SurveyMonkey, assisted with survey design and provided help desk support for the participating jurisdictions.
The analyses in this research note found that:
- States and localities found the collected information valuable to better understand the needs of the UOCAVA population and noted that having data and quotes from actual voters is very useful when discussing election administration requirements with their legislators and election boards. This also allows additional opportunities to highlight the importance of the UOCAVA population.
- The survey was able to obtain direct feedback from UOCAVA populations like spouses and eligible dependents of active duty military who may be underrepresented in other survey efforts.
- Survey response rates were above 10 percent for all participants and reached 29.5 percent for Ingham County (MI). Over 90 percent of respondents that started the survey completed it.
- Over 80 percent of survey respondents reported voting in the 2022 General Election, whereas the voting rate in most of the participating states and jurisdictions for all voters was below 50 percent. Survey weights help make the results more representative of the reference population.
- The SAUS pilot working group aided in drafting and programming the survey, creating accompanying materials, and assisting in the fielding process. This allowed participating states and jurisdictions to successfully field the SAUS pilot with a low time and resource burden. Participating states and jurisdictions had positive experiences and reported that they would participate again.
The research note covers, in detail, the process of creating the survey, recruiting participating states and jurisdictions, and fielding the pilot survey. It evaluates the pilot survey effort in terms of participant experience, survey outcomes, and other considerations for using and interpreting
resulting data as well as the lessons learned through the pilot process and considerations for potential future SAUS efforts.
To review the Executive Summary: click here.
To review the full technical research report: click here.
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For more information on FVAP or assistance with the absentee voting process, visit FVAP.gov call FVAP at 1-800-438-VOTE or DSN 425-1584 (CONUS)/312-425-1584 (OCONUS), or email vote@fvap.gov. Remember, you also can contact your unit or installation voting assistance officer for assistance during any step of the process. Facebook.com/DoDFVAP; Twitter @FVAP. Additional Information for non-UOCAVA Uniformed service members, their families, and Department of Defense civilians who are currently stationed in the same location as their voting address may visit vote.gov to register to vote and request information from their local election office to vote locally.
