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State Administered UOCAVA 

Survey Pilot 

Introduction 

The Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) works to ensure that citizens covered by the 

Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) are aware of their right to vote and 

have the tools and resources to successfully do so. FVAP assists voters through partnerships with 

the Military Services, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Justice, and election officials 

from the 50 states, U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia.

With the goal of reinforcing partnerships with local election offices and supporting independent data 

collection by states and jurisdictions, FVAP designed the State Administered UOCAVA Survey (SAUS) 

pilot. This pilot focused on assisting some states and jurisdictions in fielding a customer satisfaction 

survey among their UOCAVA voters so they could better understand the experiences of this 

population during the 2022 General Election voting process.

Unlike FVAP’s Post-Election Voting Survey of Active Duty Military (PEVS-ADM) and the Overseas 

Citizen Population Survey (OCPS), which explore national voting and registration trends on subsets 

of the UOCAVA population, the SAUS pilot was conceived to include all UOCAVA voters (including 

spouses and eligible dependents of active duty military) and focus on a particular state or 

jurisdiction so that results can better serve the election officials of those localities. Additionally, in

the SAUS pilot, participating states and jurisdictions had the ability to edit the survey as needed to 

ensure it met their needs.

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 the participating states and jurisdictions. CSG also

provided continued support in communications with election officials throughout the pilot, hosted 

the SAUS survey through their SurveyMonkey corporate account, and provided help desk support for 

the participants that requested it.1 FVAP and CSG also collaborated with Marketing for Change and

Fors Marsh to plan and support the pilot survey effort.

2 The collaboration between FVAP, CSG, 

Marketing for Change, and Fors Marsh is referred to in this research note as the “SAUS pilot working 

group.”

1 Throughout the research note, the term “participant” is used to refer to the states and jurisdictions that participated in the 

SAUS pilot.

2 Marketing for Change is a research and creative agency based in Alexandria, VA; and Fors Marsh is a research firm based 

in Arlington, VA. Fors Marsh has been the implementing partner of FVAP for surveys like the PEVS-ADM and OCPS since 

2016. For the SAUS pilot, Fors Marsh created a project plan, developed and programmed the survey instrument, and 

created technical support materials for election officials to aid them in fielding the pilot survey. Marketing for Change was in 

charge of coordination efforts and providing feedback and oversight for the duration of the project.
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State Administered UOCAVA 

Survey Pilot 

This research note covers, in detail, the process of creating the survey, recruiting participating states 

and jurisdictions, and fielding the pilot survey. It evaluates this pilot survey effort in terms of 

participant experience, survey outcomes, and other considerations for using and interpreting 

resulting data. The research note concludes with lessons learned through the pilot process and 

considerations for potential future SAUS efforts.

This research note is organized into the following sections:

• Key Research Questions

• SAUS Pilot—The Process

• Outcomes of the SAUS Pilot

• Lessons Learned

• Conclusions

The analyses in this research note find that:

• The survey was able to obtain feedback from UOCAVA populations like spouses and eligible 

dependents of active duty military who have been underrepresented in other survey efforts.

• Participating states and jurisdictions had positive experiences and reported that they would 

participate again. They found the information collected to be valuable in better understanding the 

needs of their UOCAVA population and noted that having evidence in the form of data and quotes 

from actual voters was very useful when discussing election administration changes with their 

legislatures and lawmakers.

• Survey response rates were above 10% for all participants and reached 29.5% for Ingham County

(MI). Over 90% of respondents that started the survey completed it.

SAUS Pilot Main Advantages:

The state and jurisdictions that participated in the SAUS pilot highlighted the 

following as some of the main advantages of this survey:

• The results of this survey provided them with “hard data” and actual 

quotes from their UOCAVA voters on topics like ballot return methods 

and ballot tracking, which are useful for election officials to have during 

discussions with their legislatures and lawmakers.

• Participants highlighted the usefulness of the visuals from the survey 

platform, which made results easy to interpret and share with legislators 

and other stakeholders.

• The time burden was low for the participating states and jurisdictions

(the whole process took only a few hours), and they reported that 

supporting materials made the fielding very easy. All participants 

reported they would field this survey again.

• Time burden was also low for respondents, as the median response

time was less than 10 minutes.
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Survey Pilot 

• Over 80% of survey respondents reported voting in the 2022 General Election, whereas the voting 

rate in most of the participating states and jurisdictions was below 50%. Survey weights helped make 

the results more representative of the reference population.

• With the help of the SAUS pilot working group in drafting the survey, programing it, and creating 

accompanying materials to assist in the fielding process, participating states and jurisdictions 

successfully fielded the SAUS pilot, and the time burden was low for them.

Key Research Questions 

This research note addresses the following research questions: 

• How feasible is it for state and local election officials to field a post-election customer satisfaction 

survey to their UOCAVA population?

• What are the main challenges for states and jurisdictions to field a post-election survey?

• What are the advantages of a customized survey for election offices in terms of the usefulness of the 

data collected?

• How does the response rate from UOCAVA voters compare with other FVAP-fielded surveys for active 

duty military and overseas citizens?

SAUS Pilot—The Process 

The first steps of the SAUS pilot were to create a draft version of the survey instrument and recruit 

states and jurisdictions to participate in the pilot. These two steps occurred simultaneously during 

the spring of 2022. FVAP engaged Fors Marsh to create a team to develop the draft survey, and CSG 

was in charge of recruitment efforts through their contacts within OVI’s working group. Once the 

survey was drafted and participants were recruited, the SAUS pilot working group shared the draft 

survey instrument with the participating states and jurisdictions to request their input and edit the 

questions and contents to meet their needs. The survey was then programmed into an online survey 

platform, and Fors Marsh created the toolkit materials to guide participants on how to field the 

survey. Finally, the survey was fielded between December 2022 and March 2023 for a period of six 

to nine weeks. The following are the detailed steps of the pilot process.

Survey-Drafting Process

The SAUS pilot was conceived as a customer satisfaction survey. Its main goal was to obtain 

feedback from UOCAVA voters about the voting process, the challenges they encountered during 

that process, and to collect information about their experiences with resources offered by their 

election officials, FVAP, and other entities that provide support to UOCAVA voters to help them 

successfully complete the voting process. 

The first step of the process was to create a draft version of the survey instrument to share with the 

participating states and jurisdictions so they could review and tailor the instrument to their needs,

ensuring that it addressed their topics of interest regarding the voting experiences of their UOCAVA

populations. The first portion of the survey instrument focused on establishing eligibility to complete 

the survey (i.e., that the person was a UOCAVA voter) and learning whether the respondent was a 

member of the Uniformed Services or an overseas citizen and their voting history over the past two 

federal elections. The second portion of the survey covered follow-up items regarding reasons for 
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not voting (for respondents that reported not casting a ballot for the 2022 General Election) or 

challenges encountered during the voting process (for respondents that voted or tried to vote). 

This was followed by the main section of the survey that covered customer satisfaction items, 

inquiring about the type of information that respondents looked for to complete the voting process, 

the sources they used, and the ease of finding the information they were looking for. Respondents 

were also asked to evaluate communications with the corresponding election office. This section

also included questions about if and how respondents received and returned their ballots. The 

fourth section of the survey contained five to six questions measuring the respondent’s knowledge 

of the voting policies affecting UOCAVA voters in their state and the reliability of communications 

infrastructure in their country of residence. Finally, the survey contained a block of questions 

focused on demographic characteristics of the respondents, which were necessary for purposes of 

population weighting (see Appendix A for a full version of the survey instrument).

While drafting the survey instrument, there was an effort to balance obtaining as much information 

as possible from UOCAVA voters and making the survey relatively short to both reduce the time 

burden on the respondents and increase the likelihood of them completing the survey. During the 

survey-building process, the target average time for responding to the survey was between five and 

10 minutes. The survey also included multiple open-ended questions that gave respondents an 

option to provide additional details regarding their responses. For example, after being asked about 

how clear the instructions to complete the ballot for the general election were, respondents were 

asked to explain why they rated the instructions to be “very clear,” “somewhat clear,” or “unclear.” It 

is important to note that a response was not required for any of the open-ended questions. The only 

mandatory questions were the first two, which established eligibility for completing the survey and 

whether or not the respondent voted in the 2022 General Election.

The questions were drafted to mirror language in the PEVS-ADM and OCPS surveys when covering 

the same topics. For example: item Q7 of the SAUS pilot (“In preparation for the 2022 primaries or 

General Election, did you use any of the following resources for voting assistance?”) used similar 

language as Q24 of the 2020 OCPS (“In preparation for the 2020 primaries or General Election, did 

you use any of the following resources?”) and Q45 of the 2022 PEVS-ADM (“Did you seek voting 

information or assistance from any of the following?”). However, an effort was made to ensure that 

the topics were relevant for the election officials that would ultimately field the survey and use the 

results to better understand the voting journey of their UOCAVA voters.

Participant Recruitment

With the pilot nature of the SAUS in mind, the SAUS pilot working group aimed to engage no more 

than five participating states and jurisdictions to explore the feasibility of this effort. The limited 

number of participants would allow the SAUS pilot working group to provide close support before 

and during the fielding. At the same time, the SAUS pilot working group looked to recruit different 

types of jurisdictions to assess the feasibility of fielding the survey for states and local jurisdictions 

of different sizes. Additionally, one key component was the need for the state or jurisdiction to have 

the email addresses of their UOCAVA population—or, if not all, a relatively large percentage of all 

their UOCAVA voters—as the SAUS pilot would be administered online and invitations would be sent 

by email to increase the speed of the fielding process and limit the associated costs to postal mail.
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CSG communicated with multiple participants of the OVI working group to explain the nature of the 

pilot and explore interest in participation among the members. After conversations, CSG recruited 

the states of Colorado and Kentucky and the jurisdictions of Escambia County (FL), Ingham County 

(MI), and Okaloosa County (FL) to participate in the pilot. The state of Kentucky, however, ultimately 

dropped-out of the pilot due to internal challenges in allocating resources to this project during the 

post-election period.

All participants reported having email addresses for a majority of their UOCAVA voters except for the 

state of Kentucky, which reported they could likely obtain the email addresses through their 

jurisdictions.

3 CSG also asked participants about their experience with survey platforms and 

whether they currently were subscribers to any platform to field their own surveys. The majority of 

participants did not have any survey platform subscription, except for Colorado’s corporate

SurveyMonkey account, and most of the participants that reported using survey platforms in the 

past had used other free access platforms like Jotform and Smartsheet.

After recruitment, the participating states and jurisdictions met virtually with the SAUS pilot working 

group to discuss the project, responsibilities, and expectations and to review the draft survey 

instrument. Participants then had several weeks to revise the survey instrument and provide 

feedback and suggestions for changes that were implemented by the SAUS pilot working group. The 

survey instrument was then finalized and approved by participants before it was programmed 

online. 

Survey Platform, Survey Programming, and Toolkit Materials

Survey Platform

Because few participating states and jurisdictions had access to a survey platform, it was necessary 

to identify an appropriate platform option that participants could use to host and field their surveys. 

The working group identified the requirements that a survey platform would need in order to meet 

the survey instrument and the fielding demands, including:

• Response limits: Ensure that software allowed for more than 50,000 responses in a limited 

period of time. This benchmark was based on the number of ballots transmitted to UOCAVA

voters in the previous midterm and presidential elections by the participating states and 

jurisdictions, which ranged from 45,233 in 2018 and 71,394 in 2020, as reported in the 

Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS).

4

• Built-in mailing system: To account for the initial survey invitation and additional email 

reminders, this mailing system should allow personalized invitations with the capability of 

sending over 100,000 emails.

• Allow skip logic: Some survey questions were only presented to a subset of respondents,

depending on their responses to previous questions (e.g., a question about the branch of 

3 Kentucky is a bottom-up state, meaning that most voting information is collected and stored at the local level and then 

shared with the state upon request or through a shared secure portal.

4 These numbers include the state of Kentucky, since the state dropped out of the pilot after the survey platform decision 

process was conducted. The totals were obtained from the 2022 EAVS, available at: 

https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/2023-06/2022_EAVS_Report_508c.pdf
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the military the respondent belongs to was only asked to respondents who identified as 

active duty military).

• Security: The survey platform should have sufficient security standards to ensure that data 

collected through the survey instrument was safe, even though no personally identifiable 

information was asked in the survey instrument.

Since most of the participants did not have access to a survey platform that met the minimal 

requirements, the SAUS pilot working group considered several alternative options for hosting the 

pilot survey. Free options (e.g., Google Forms) were determined to not meet most (if any) of the 

requirements listed. This left two potential options available: have participants purchase their own 

license for a paid survey software that met the requirements (e.g., Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey), or 

provide them with access to a corporate account through a third party that would host the “main

account.” At this point, to avoid the cost burden for the participating states and jurisdictions and to 

make the most of CSG’s and Colorado’s SurveyMonkey accounts, the second option was selected. 

CSG, which already had a SurveyMonkey account, upgraded their account to be able to offer the 

pilot participants unpaid access to the software. A pre-programmed survey was provided to Colorado 

so they could use their existing corporate SurveyMonkey account to field the survey independently.

Survey Programming

Fors Marsh was granted user access by CSG to SurveyMonkey and programmed the final version of 

the questionnaire. This process involved programming the items, survey logic, and tailoring some 

items that were specific for each participant (e.g., Q7 listed a personalized voting assistance 

resource for each state/local jurisdiction). Additionally, participants were asked to provide their 

logos, branding colors, and other materials to personalize each of the surveys. After programming 

and testing, links to finished versions of the survey were distributed to the participants and the 

SAUS pilot working group for final review.

Toolkit Materials

With the goal of providing as much support as possible to participating states and jurisdictions to 

reduce their time burden during an election period when they already had large volumes of work, 

Fors Marsh created a series of accompanying materials to guide the participants through the 

fielding process. These materials, referred to as “toolkit materials” included the following resources:

• Step-by-step guides for SurveyMonkey users: There were two different guides to navigating

SurveyMonkey depending on whether the participant fielded the survey on their own or

through CSG’s main account. For Colorado, the guide included all the information needed 

to import the survey to their SurveyMonkey account and detailed all the steps involved in 

the fielding process, the data collection modes available, how to send personalized 

invitations, etc. For the rest of the participants, the guide included instructions on how to 

create their SurveyMonkey account and how to monitor progress of the survey. Both guides 

had detailed step-by-step descriptions and screenshots to help participants navigate the 

platform with ease.

• Communication templates: Four communication templates were made available to the 

participants. These included a sample email invitation to send to potential respondents 

and three follow-up email reminders to complete the survey. The communications provided 

a brief description of the survey, its goal, and the anticipated time burden. Participants had 
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the freedom to use these communications, make their own, or edit the templates to match 

their needs.

• Help desk log: The survey invitations and the survey instrument provided respondents with 

an email address to contact if they had any questions or concerns about the survey. 

Participating states and jurisdictions had the choice to manage the help desk on their own 

or allow CSG to do so. The help desk log consisted of a spreadsheet to log the reason why 

participants reached out to the help desk with the goal of identifying any recurring issues 

with the survey.

• Standardized help desk responses: Fors Marsh’s experience with fielding surveys allowed 

them to identify common issues for survey participants and create a brief document that 

provided standardized responses for those topics. Standardized responses covered

instances where participants reached out asking to be excluded from future emails, to get 

help troubleshooting issues accessing the survey, and to inquire about survey closing.

• Contact removal list: This spreadsheet helped to log all participants that requested to be 

removed from the email list for survey reminders.

• Fielding schedule: Each participant received a fielding schedule detailing when to update 

their email lists based on completed surveys and removal requests and when to send each 

of the three reminder emails. For the standard survey fielding period of two months, the 

reminders were suggested to be sent 10, 30, and 45 days after the start of the survey 

fielding.

Survey Fielding

The fielding period for the survey was planned to last two months and take place between 

December 2022 and February 2023. When creating the schedule, the top priority was to start

fielding soon after the November 2022 General Election so respondents had a vivid memory of the 

voting process and could provide accurate responses, but understanding that state and local 

election offices need their full focus on conducting the election, counting, canvassing, and other 

election-related activities during the month of November. Thus, the SAUS pilot working group and 

the participating states and jurisdictions found December 2022 to February 2023 to be the most 

feasible time to field the survey.

The participating states and jurisdictions had different support needs for survey fielding and 

different resource availability to start the fielding process. Thus, the SAUS pilot working group 

worked with them separately when necessary to ensure all of their needs were met. The SAUS pilot 

working group met with Colorado in late November to review the toolkit materials and planned their 

survey fielding to take place between December 6, 2022, and February 6, 2023. The state of 

Colorado fielded the survey through their own SurveyMonkey account and had full control over it. 

They used the email system from SurveyMonkey to send emails with personalized survey links to 

UOCAVA voters so only one response was allowed per link. Respondents were also able to save 

progress and complete the survey in different sessions. Additionally, Colorado hosted their own help

desk to respond to questions from survey respondents and used the appropriate toolkit materials 

for this task. To meet Colorado’s needs, all toolkit materials were prepared to cover the whole 

survey-fielding process, so they had the autonomy to fully field the survey after they imported the 

survey instrument.
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On the other hand, Escambia County (FL), Ingham County (MI), and Okaloosa County (FL), decided to 

field the survey through CSG’s main SurveyMonkey account and allow CSG to coordinate the help

desk, while the counties were in charge of sending the invitation and reminder emails to their 

UOCAVA voters. Given this division of responsibilities, the fielding process differed from that of 

Colorado. Because voters’ emails are considered personal information, the counties were not 

allowed to share them with CSG to send personalized survey links to respondents through the 

survey platform. Instead, CSG created a general survey link for each county so they could distribute 

via email to their UOCAVA voters through their preferred email system. This approach, however, did 

not allow respondents to save progress and could not guarantee that the survey was completed only 

once per participant, although a series of IP constraints were selected in SurveyMonkey to limit that 

risk.

Okaloosa County (FL) fielded the survey between December 12, 2022, and February 13, 2023, 

Escambia County (FL) fielded the survey between December 13, 2022, and February 13, 2023, and 

Ingham County (MI) had a shortened fielding period between January 24, 2023, and March 10, 

2023. The main reason for Ingham County’s delayed survey fielding start was their need to focus 

local election office resources on a partial recount of the November 2022 General Election, which 

limited their ability to start the fielding process earlier.

Closure Activities

After survey fielding was closed, responses were exported from SurveyMonkey in Excel format and

shared with the SAUS pilot working group—Colorado also shared their help desk log. The raw survey 

responses were processed by the SAUS pilot working group to produce topline tables that allowed 

participants to gain insights on the overall responses from their UOCAVA voters, as well as the 

responses broken down by different categories such as type of UOCAVA voter (i.e., overseas citizen 

or Uniformed Services), age, gender, and world region. In addition to the topline tables provided by 

the SAUS pilot working group, the participating states and jurisdictions were able to explore the 

results on their own through SurveyMonkey’s dashboard.

The SAUS pilot working group asked the participants to complete, to the best of their ability, a 

spreadsheet with information about the UOCAVA population to which they sent the survey. This 

information enabled responses to be weighted so that results could be representative of their 

UOCAVA population. The categories included in the spreadsheet were: availability of email, vote 

history in the past two elections, number of elections they requested a ballot for, country of 

residence, race/ethnicity, age, sex, educational attainment, and marital status. All the data was 

asked as aggregated totals so no personally identifiable information was reported. When possible, 

participants were asked to also provide cross tabulations of these variables (e.g., break down email 

availability from voters for each age range). For the purposes of weighting, the survey instrument 

had questions covering these categories, making it possible to weight the responses based on the 

data provided by the respondent and the pilot participant (see subsection “Survey Weighting” and 

Appendix B for details). The spreadsheet also contained a table for participants to enter the number 

of invitation emails sent and the total number of initial invitations returned as undeliverable.

Finally, during the spring of 2023, Fors Marsh conducted interviews with all pilot participants and 

CSG to inquire about their experiences fielding the SAUS pilot and learn what worked and what 

could be improved for future iterations of the survey. Overall, feedback was positive and the 
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participants were satisfied with the experience (more details on the interview results in the 

“Feedback—Interviews” subsection).

Outcomes of the SAUS Pilot 

This section discusses some of the main findings about the process of fielding the SAUS pilot 

survey. It covers the results on participation rate and survey-completion-related metrics and 

analyzes when participants responded to the survey. It also shows the potential impact of using 

survey weights to make the survey results more representative of their reference population and 

discusses results from some key metrics. Finally, it provides information about the topics in the 

communications between respondents and the survey help desk and the overall experience of the 

participating states and jurisdictions with the SAUS pilot. 

Survey Completion

In order to evaluate the success of the survey fielding and look for opportunities for improvement, 

the SAUS pilot working group analyzed the data related to survey completion, when respondents 

completed the survey, and other related metrics. The state of Colorado and the jurisdictions of 

Ingham County (MI), and Okaloosa County (FL), provided data about the number of email invitations 

sent and the availability of email addresses for their UOCAVA voters. Table 1 shows that Colorado, 

Ingham County (MI), and Okaloosa County (FL) had available email addresses of at least 80% of 

their UOCAVA voters and as many as 98.1% of voters in Ingham County (MI), meaning that these 

participants were able to send the survey to a majority of their UOCAVA voters. There were some 

cases where the email invitations were returned as undeliverable, but these instances were 

relatively rare and accounted for less than 3% of all the invitations sent. Additionally, 

SurveyMonkey’s emailing system, which was used by Colorado to send the invitations, showed that 

76.6% of the email invitations sent by Colorado were opened by the recipient.

Table 1. Survey Invitation and Response Metrics. Over 10% of the UOCAVA Voters Invited to 

Participate in the Survey Started It. 

SAUS Pilot 

Participant

Percentage of 

UOCAVA Emails 

Available 

Total Number of 

Survey Invitations 

Sent 

Undeliverable 

Email Invitations 

Survey Response 

Rate 

Colorado 93.8% 36,771 2.8% 16.1%

Ingham County (MI) 98.1% 413 1.9% 29.5%

Okaloosa County (FL) 80.7% 6,695 1.8% 11.7%

The survey response rate—that is, the percentage of UOCAVA voters invited to take the survey that 

provided responses to at least a portion of the survey—varied across participants. Ingham County 

(MI) registered the largest response rate, with 29.5% of invited respondents starting the survey.

Okaloosa County (FL) had the lowest response rate with 11.7% responding. Data for Escambia 

County (FL) was not available at the time of writing this report, but using their reported number of 

UOCAVA ballots transmitted in the 2022 EAVS as a proxy for email invitations sent, and assuming an 

email address availability of 90%, the result would be about a 10% survey response rate. The survey 

response rates for the SAUS pilot were slightly higher than the response rates obtained in the 2022 

PEVS-ADM (8.0%) and the 2022 OCPS (9.4%).
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For all participants in the SAUS pilot, over 90% of the respondents that started the survey ended up 

completing it (see Table 2). The median completion time of the survey was six to eight minutes, 

matching the expected goal of five to 10 minutes. SurveyMonkey provided the start and completion 

date and time. In some cases, the total completion time was multiple hours, which likely points to 

participants completing the survey in more than one sitting or leaving the survey open in order to 

complete it later, making the median the best central tendency statistic to assess the usual time it 

took for respondents to complete the survey. 

Table 2. Survey Completion Rates and Times. Over 90% of Respondents That Started the Survey 

Completed It. 

SAUS Pilot 

Participant

Total Started 

Surveys 

Total Completed 

Surveys 

Percent of Started 

Surveys Completed 

Median Survey 

Completion Time 

Colorado 5,912 5,489 92.8% 7 min.

Escambia County (FL) 575 537 93.4% 7 min.

Ingham County (MI) 122 121 99.2% 8 min.

Okaloosa County (FL) 785 741 94.4% 6 min.

Another factor to consider during the survey fielding was the importance of survey reminders. The 

SAUS pilot working group suggested a survey fielding period of two months, with three reminders 

that were expected to be delivered 10, 30, and 45 days after the start of the fielding period. 

However, as discussed above, Ingham County (MI) had a shorter fielding period and reminder 

schedule because of conflicting responsibilities, whereas Escambia County (FL) and Okaloosa 

County (FL) missed the first reminder and sent the two reminders in a slightly different schedule. 

Figure 1 displays the cumulative percentage of respondents that started the survey by the number 

of days after the start of the fielding period, with the dots flagging the day when a survey reminder 

was sent to respondents. For all participants except Escambia County (FL), over 40% of the 

respondents that started the survey did so within the first three days of the fielding period. 

Additionally, within three days of sending a reminder, all participants experienced spikes in the 

number of respondents starting the survey, which represented increases of about 10 to 40 

percentage points of the total respondents that started the survey. These results demonstrate the 

importance of reaching out to respondents to remind them about the survey during the fielding 

period. 
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Figure 1. Survey Start Timeline. The Days After the Initial Survey Invitation and the Reminder Emails 

Account for the Majority of Overall Survey Starts. 

Survey Weighting 

FVAP uses sampling and weighting in their surveys (e.g., PEVS-ADM, OCPS) with the goal of obtaining

results that are representative of the national UOCAVA population. The SAUS pilot, however, was a 

census of the UOCAVA voters registered to vote on November 8, 2022, in each of the participating 

states and jurisdictions; thus, no sampling was needed.

5

Table 3. Weighting Categories Provided by Participant. Most Participants Provided Information on 

Email Availability, Age, and Sex/Gender. 

Weighting Category Colorado 

Escambia 

County (FL) 

Ingham 

County (MI) 

Okaloosa 

County (FL) 

Email availability ✓  ✓ ✓

Voter History (2022 and 2020) ✓   ✓

Country of Residence    

Race/Ethnicity    ✓

Age ✓  ✓ ✓

Gender ✓  ✓ ✓

Educational Attainment    

Marital Status    

5 The only limitation of the census nature of the SAUS pilot is that the survey was shared with UOCAVA voters with an email 

address on file. See Table 1 for data on email address availability per participant.
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Weighting was conducted with the intention of ensuring that the results were as representative of 

each participant’s UOCAVA population as possible. With this goal, the SAUS pilot working group 

requested participants to provide the totals for some key demographics and voter history 

information to create the appropriate weights. Table 3 shows the information that each of the SAUS 

participants provided. In addition to the totals for these categories, the participants provided the 

cross tabulation totals (e.g., for gender by age, the participants provided the total number of 

UOCAVA voters of each gender that belonged to each of the four age groups requested. See 

Appendix B for more details).

The SAUS pilot survey also asked respondents questions about the weighting topics (e.g., age, 

whether they voted in the 2022 and/or 2020 General Election), to make it possible to create the

population weights. The weighting process looks at the proportion of the UOCAVA population in a 

category (e.g., proportion of UOCAVA voters in each of the four age ranges) and adds a weight to 

each respondent so the overall proportions for the respondents are similar to those in the reference 

population. For example, if a jurisdiction has the same proportion of UOCAVA voters in each of the 

four age groups (i.e., 25% in each group) but the majority of the people that completed the survey 

were older people (e.g., 40% of respondents were 65+ years old), larger weights would be given to 

the responses of the younger age groups so that results better represent the actual population (see 

more details on the weighting process in Appendix B).

Only surveys with complete demographic data were given weights, and depending on the 

information that each of the participating states and jurisdictions were able to share, zero to five 

sets of weights were created for each. Every set of weights included age and gender, whereas

race/ethnicity and voter history were included in some sets, as available. 

In general, when comparing the observed proportions for age, gender, and race/ethnicity between 

the unweighted survey responses and the reference population, most had very similar results. For 

gender, the unweighted responses for the three participants that provided information for this 

category (i.e., Colorado, Ingham County (MI), and Okaloosa County (FL)) were within five percentage 

points of their reference population, meaning that men and women accounted for a similar portion 

of respondents as they did for the actual UOCAVA population in their jurisdictions. For the age 

breakdown, the difference between the respondents and the reference population was slightly 

higher for some groups. The proportion of respondents that were 45 to 65 years old and 65 years 

and older was larger than the proportion of these age groups in the actual UOCAVA population for 

each of the participants that provided the information, leading to apply larger weights for younger 

respondents to address the mismatch. Only Okaloosa County (FL) provided their population 

information on race/ethnicity, which, when compared to their respondents, displayed small 

discrepancies within each race/ethnicity category—the larger discrepancy between the reference 

population and the respondents to the survey was 8.0 percentage points.
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Table 4. Ballot Return Rates Using Different Calculations. Survey Respondents Were Mostly Voters. 

 Ballot Return Rate Calculation 

Method Colorado 

Escambia 

County (FL) 

Ingham 

County (MI) 

Okaloosa 

County (FL) 

ESB - Baseline 38.1% 45.7% 84.0% 40.7%

UOCAVA Voter History – Reference 

Population 

35.4% — — 34.6%

SAUS – Unweighted 84.5% 80.1% 97.5% 82.8%

SAUS – Weighted – Joint Distribution 

w/Voter History 

35.4% — — 36.9%

SAUS – Weighted – Joint Distribution 

w/o Voter History 

84.8% — 96.7% 82.3%

SAUS – Weighted – Marginal 

Distribution w/Voter History 

35.4% — — 34.6%

SAUS – Weighted – Marginal 

Distribution w/o Voter History 

84.8% — 96.8% 82.3%

SAUS – Weighted – Joint and 

Marginal Distribution w/Voter History 

— — — 34.6%

On the other hand, when looking at voter history, the differences between the ballot return rates 

from the actual UOCAVA population and the ballot return rates from the respondents was notably 

large. The breakdown of ballot return rates presented in Table 4 were calculated using different 

methods to display the impact of the weights. The methods represented in the table are:

• ESB baseline: Uses EAVS Section B (ESB) transactional data to calculate the percentage of ballots 

transmitted that were returned.6

• UOCAVA Voter History – Reference population: Uses the data provided from participants about the 

percentage of UOCAVA registrants that voted in 2022 (this was only provided by Colorado and 

Okaloosa County (FL)).

• SAUS Unweighted: Displays the percentage of survey respondents that reported voting in 2022 based 

on their response to Q2 in the survey.

• SAUS – Weighted – Joint Distribution w/Voter History: Displays the weighted percentage of survey 

respondents that reported voting in 2022 after applying the weights based on the joint distributions of 

the available demographic variables for each participant, including voter history.

• SAUS Pilot – Weighted – Joint Distribution w/o Voter History: Displays the weighted percentage of 

survey respondents that reported voting in 2022 after applying the weights based on the joint 

distributions of the available demographic variables for each participant, excluding voter history.

• SAUS Pilot – Weighted – Marginal Distribution w/Voter History: Displays the weighted percentage of 

survey respondents that reported voting in 2022 after applying the weights based on calibrations 

using the marginal distributions of the available demographic variables for each participant, including

voter history.

• SAUS Pilot – Weighted – Marginal Distribution w/o Voter History: Displays the weighted percentage of 

survey respondents that reported voting in 2022 after applying the weights based on calibrations 

using the marginal distributions of the available demographic variables for each participant, excluding

voter history.

• SAUS Pilot – Weighted – Joint and Marginal Distribution w/Voter History: Displays the weighted 

percentage of survey respondents that reported voting in 2022 after applying the weights based on 

6 Transactional data on ballots transmitted and returned used to calculate the return rates for the SAUS participants was 

obtained from ESB. For more information on this data and the calculations see 

https://www.fvap.gov/uploads/FVAP/Reports/2022-esb-research-note-final.pdf
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State Administered UOCAVA 

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the joint distributions for age, gender, and race/ethnicity and the marginal distribution for voter 

history.

Over 80% of respondents from each state and jurisdiction reported returning a ballot for the 2022 

General Election. This contrasts with the ballot return rate registered in each of the participating 

states and jurisdictions. The first row of Table 4 displays the ballot return rate for 2022 using ESB

data, whereas the third row shows the unweighted percentage of the SAUS pilot respondents that 

reported voting in the 2022 General Election. With the exception of Ingham County (MI), the 

discrepancies are larger than 30 percentage points. 

The second row shows the ballot return rate calculated using the data provided by Colorado and 

Okaloosa County (FL) for weighting purposes. For both, the rates are relatively similar to ESB’s 

percentages. The rest of the rows display the ballot return rate when using each of the available 

weights. As expected, the weights including voter history information led to the most similar results 

and demonstrate how this particular piece of information was crucial when calculating a set of 

weights that represented the actual UOCAVA population, as UOCAVA voters—UOCAVA registrants 

that returned a ballot in the 2022 General Election—were notably overrepresented among survey 

respondents. Overrepresentation of voters in post-election surveys is not rare. For the 2022 OCPS, 

voters comprised 72.8% of the respondents.7 This phenomenon is likely associated with voters—

particularly mid-term election voters—being more engaged in election-related activities, such as 

responding to a post-election survey. Including voter history in the weights for the SAUS pilot, 

however, also led to an increase in the variability of the weights and increased the standard error of 

the estimators (see more details on the weighting process in Appendix B).

The table and discussion above highlight the importance of the demographic and voter history 

information provided by participants in order to calculate weights that help to make the results more 

representative of their actual UOCAVA population.

SAUS Survey Advantages

FVAP surveys like the PEVS-ADM and the OCPS aim to obtain results that are representative of the 

national UOCAVA population. However, as shown above, the UOCAVA population may vary widely 

from one state to another, or even between different jurisdictions within the same state. Because of 

this, targeted surveys such as the SAUS pilot can provide additional insight to states and 

jurisdictions about the reality of their UOCAVA populations.

For example, in the SAUS pilot, respondents were asked whether they had difficulties returning their 

ballots for the November 8, 2022, General Election (Q6a_3). This question was also asked to active 

duty military in the 2022 PEVS-ADM (Q35e) and to overseas citizens in the 2022 OCPS (Q17_5).

Tables 5 and 6 show in the first row the results for this question at the national level as reported in 

the 2022 PEVS-ADM and 2022 OCPS, respectively. The following rows show the unweighted and 

weighted results (where available) for each of the SAUS pilot participants.

7 For the 2022 PEVS-ADM, voters represented 33.2% of the respondents. However, the reference population of the PEVSADM survey is all active duty military—not only ballot requestors like the SAUS pilot and the OCPS surveys. For comparison 

purposes, if only ballot requestors were considered, the percentage of voters that responded to the PEVS-ADM would be 

69.8% and would also show an overrepresentation of active duty military voters.
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Table 5. Difficulty Returning Ballot For Active Duty Military Using Different Calculation Methods. 

Difficulty Returning Ballot 

Calculation Method 

Colorado 

Escambia 

County (FL) 

Ingham 

County (MI) 

Okaloosa 

County (FL) 

PEVS-ADM Q35e – Difficulty 

returning ballot 

4.1%

SAUS – Unweighted 11.6% 5.3% 0.0% 4.9%

SAUS – Weighted – Joint 

Distribution w/Voter History 

25.3% — — 11.3%

SAUS – Weighted – Joint 

Distribution w/o Voter History 

12.1% — 0.0% 5.3%

SAUS – Weighted – Marginal 

Distribution w/Voter History 

23.6% — — 9.3%

SAUS – Weighted – Marginal 

Distribution w/o Voter History 

11.8% — 0.0% 4.9%

SAUS – Weighted – Joint and 

Marginal Distribution w/Voter 

History 

— — — 9.7%

Table 6. Difficulty Returning Ballot For Overseas Citizens Using Different Calculation Methods. 

Difficulty Returning Ballot 

Calculation Method 

Colorado 

Escambia 

County (FL) 

Ingham 

County (MI) 

Okaloosa 

County (FL) 

OCPS Q17_5 – Difficulty 

returning ballot 

17.0%

SAUS – Unweighted 7.6% 10.2% 7.6% 8.3%

SAUS – Weighted – Joint 

Distribution w/Voter History 

16.0% — — 22.0%

SAUS – Weighted – Joint 

Distribution w/o Voter History 

7.5% — 8.4% 8.1%

SAUS – Weighted – Marginal 

Distribution w/Voter History 

16.5% — — 25.5%

SAUS – Weighted – Marginal 

Distribution w/o Voter History 

7.5% — 7.8% 8.0%

SAUS – Weighted – Joint and 

Marginal Distribution w/Voter 

History 

— — — 27.9%

A look at tables 5 and 6 provides insight on how the SAUS pilot survey can better serve states and 

jurisdictions to understand the challenges experienced by their UOCAVA populations. Table 5 

illustrates that at the national level, 4.1% of active duty military reported experiencing difficulties 

returning their ballots in 2022. However, the percentage of active duty military respondents in 

Colorado that experienced such challenges was noticeably higher, as seen by the unweighted result 

for the SAUS survey (11.6%). Additionally, the weighted results show that when applying weights to 

account for the underrepresentation of non-voters in the SAUS pilot survey, the percentage of active 

duty military respondents in Colorado that reported experiencing these challenges increased to 
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State Administered UOCAVA 

Survey Pilot 

about six times the number reported in PEVS-ADM. On the other hand, Colorado’s overseas citizens 

reported in the SAUS pilot that they experienced difficulties returning their ballots less often than 

the national OCPS sample, even after applying weights to adjust for non-voter underrepresentation.

In addition to the targeted results for states and jurisdictions, the SAUS pilot had multiple follow-up 

open-ended questions that allowed states and jurisdictions to go beyond the percentage of 

respondents that selected an option and learn the reason for it. Using the example above, 

respondents who reported experiencing issues returning their ballot were then asked to provide a 

brief comment about the issues they experienced. For active duty military respondents who reported 

such issues, 83.5% of them completed the open ended question. This allowed states and 

jurisdictions to not only learn about how many respondents had issues, but also to learn what those 

issues were so they could find topics mentioned by multiple respondents and work on addressing 

them for future elections.

Another advantage of the SAUS pilot survey is that spouses and eligible dependents of active duty 

military are included in the survey, whereas they are rarely included in other post-election surveys

and thus information about their experiences is usually not available. Table 7 provides a breakdown 

of the different types of UOCAVA respondents for each of the participating states and jurisdictions.

Table 7. Percentage of Survey Respondents by Type of UOCAVA Population. 

SAUS Pilot 

Participant Active Duty Military 

Active Duty Military 

Spouse 

Active Duty Military 

Dependent 

Overseas 

Citizen 

Colorado 7.4% 3.7% 0.2% 88.8%

Escambia County (FL) 56.1% 19.5% 0.5% 23.8%

Ingham County (MI) 2.5% 0% 0% 97.5%

Okaloosa County (FL) 48.4% 30.7% 1.9% 19.0%

Another advantage of the SAUS pilot is the ability of participating states and jurisdictions to include 

customer satisfaction questions that are relevant to them. For example, the question covering the 

respondent’s use of resources for voting assistance in 2022 (Q7) included a response option that 

was personalized with each participant’s preferred online voting resource (e.g., EscambiaVotes.gov 

for Escambia County (FL)). The results showed that between 40.5% and 53.8% of respondents that 

voted or tried to vote used their local online voting resources, and over 70% of those who used 

these resources quickly found the information they were looking for.

In addition to personalized items, the SAUS pilot covered additional questions directly related to the 

local election administration. Most of these questions had follow-up questions and open-ended 

fields for respondents to provide as much information as needed. For example:

• Q8: Did you contact your election office by telephone, email, chat, or direct message to 

address any questions or concerns?

o Q8a (if “yes” to Q8): Did your election office generally respond to you in a timely 

manner?

• Q9: How clear were the instructions provided by your election office on how to register to 

vote and/or request a ballot for the November 8, 2022, General Election?

o This question was followed by an open-ended field to provide further details on 

why the instructions were clear or not.
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State Administered UOCAVA 

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• Q11: How clear were the instructions provided by your election office on how to fill your 

ballot for the November 8, 2022, General Election?

o This question was followed by an open-ended field to provide further details on 

why the instructions were clear or not.

• Q14: In your opinion, what would improve your voting experience? (open ended question)

These types of questions provided more personalized feedback and insights to election officials 

about the election administration in their jurisdictions and the experiences of their UOCAVA voters

during the 2022 General Election. Questions from the SAUS pilot also measured respondents’ 

interest in topics, like additional methods of ballot return, in an effort to better understand the 

necessities of their registered UOCAVA voters.

Help Desk Log Findings

The SAUS pilot survey invitations provided recipients with an email address to contact if they had 

any issues or comments regarding the survey. Colorado hosted their own help desk, whereas the 

other three participating counties had CSG host their help desk and respond to invitees’ requests.

Colorado recorded a total of 38 contacts from UOCAVA registrants out of the total 36,771 invitations 

they initially sent. The most common topics of these contacts were invitees reporting they are no 

longer eligible Colorado UOCAVA voters (34.2%) or invitees providing feedback on some of the 

survey items (34.2%). Respondents who were no longer eligible UOCAVA voters either no longer 

resided overseas or were registered to vote in another state. Over 75% of the item feedback 

involved the first question that categorized respondents as overseas citizens or active duty military, 

spouses, or eligible dependents, with the feedback suggesting additional UOCAVA populations 

missing from the categories (e.g., diplomats). Almost 25% of the item feedback involved the gender

question, as some respondents requested that more gender options be made available. Only three 

people contacted the help desk with technological issues with the survey, whereas four people 

wrote to thank the state for their service, and another five contacted with other comments.

CSG hosted the help desk for the other three participants and received a total of six emails from 

respondents. Two were from respondents reporting they were no longer UOCAVA voters, two were 

technical issues that were escalated for resolution, one was survey feedback on an item about mail 

reliability, and one was a request for the county to change their email address on record. Overall, 

few survey invitees contacted the help desk (less than 0.1% of invitees), suggesting that most 

respondents did not experience issues with completing the survey.

Feedback — Interviews

Fors Marsh conducted interviews with the participating states and jurisdictions and CSG to inquire 

about what worked well and what aspects of the pilot they would change. Overall, feedback was 

positive, and participants were very satisfied with how the process went. 

Most participants mentioned that timing for the survey fielding—which was expected to take place 

from early December to early February—was a good balance between them wrapping-up the election 

during the month of November and still being close enough to the election that respondents had a 

vivid memory of their election experience. Ingham County (MI) had to run a recount during 
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State Administered UOCAVA 

Survey Pilot 

December and had limited personnel, so they started fielding in early February. A slightly later 

fielding period worked best for them, and the flexibility of the SAUS pilot helped to accommodate to 

their time frame. One participant noted that the survey fielding period might have been too long (two 

months), and that six weeks, even with the holidays at the end of the year, would have been enough 

and would help reduce procrastination among respondents.

Participants noted that the toolkit materials were very helpful, particularly the email invitation 

templates, which all participants mentioned they only slightly edited to customize to their needs. 

Colorado, which administered the survey themselves, noted that the SurveyMonkey step-by-step 

guide to set the survey up was very thorough and helpful. For all participants, the most challenging 

part of the toolkit materials was the spreadsheet to report the weighting information (i.e., 

demographics and voter history) because of its complexity. However, participants mentioned that 

the assistance from the SAUS pilot working group helped them resolve their questions, and they 

were able to input the information for the fields they track data for.

Regarding the survey content, participants were satisfied with the topics covered in the survey. 

Although for the most part, the responses aligned with what states and jurisdictions expected, most 

of them explicitly mentioned that having data and actual quotes from UOCAVA-registered voters on 

topics like ballot return methods and ballot tracking was useful for them when discussing changes 

in the voting process with their legislatures and lawmakers. They highlighted this as one of the main 

benefits of the SAUS pilot, in addition to learning more about challenges for some registrants to 

receive their ballots. Two of the four participants suggested shortening the survey for future 

iterations to make it less time consuming for respondents and to reduce the number of people not 

completing the survey due to its length.

All the participants were satisfied with SurveyMonkey as the survey platform. They mentioned that it 

was easy to navigate and that they valued both the automatic graphs that summarized item 

responses and the flexibility to break responses down by population or other items. They 

appreciated that having the visuals from the survey made it easier for them to interpret the results 

and share with legislators and other stakeholders. However, the counties—who had restricted 

access to the main survey account—mentioned that they did not have direct access to the contents 

of the open-ended questions, but the SAUS pilot working group was able to provide all the survey 

responses in spreadsheet format for their review. Additionally, the SAUS pilot working group sent all 

participants topline tables with the results for all the survey items from their respondents broken 

down in several categories (e.g., age, world region) to provide further insight on the responses from 

their UOCAVA registrants. 

The only challenge with SurveyMonkey that was mentioned by Colorado during the interview was the 

limitation on the number of invitation emails of the survey platform. They had a limit of 10,000 

emails at a time and had to send 36,771 invitations, so they had to increase the capabilities of their 

SurveyMonkey account to allow for the total number of emails, invitations, and reminders sent over 

a two-day period. Challenges sending invitations were also mentioned by other counties. In 

particular, Okaloosa County (FL) sent the invitations from their county email, and they had to ensure 

the large number of outgoing emails did not block the email system, as security settings flag when 

large amounts of emails are sent.
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State Administered UOCAVA 

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Overall, respondents mentioned that the time burden was relatively low. Colorado reported spending 

four to six hours to compile the demographic information and to import and set up the survey, which 

later required only minimal monitoring. In the case of the counties, the part that took the most time 

was sending the email invitations and reminders, as they had to do little monitoring while the survey 

was in the field. Counties also mentioned that for scheduled survey reminders, since they had to 

manually send them from their emails, it would help to have someone from the SAUS pilot working 

group reach out to them the day before a reminder is expected to be sent so it would be on their 

radar, as their post-election work made keeping track of the schedule challenging.

In their interview, CSG reported that the state and jurisdiction recruitment process for the SAUS pilot 

was relatively easy, as they approached OVI members they were familiar with and that were already

engaged in research initiatives about their UOCAVA population. However, they mentioned the 

biggest challenge was to find a time that worked for all of them to meet, as they were very busy 

during an election year. CSG also mentioned that for future iterations, if there is a desire to increase 

the number of participating jurisdictions, it would be beneficial to approach other jurisdictions 

during in-person conferences to explain the project and get them involved.

Participants were very happy with the overall experience conducting the SAUS pilot survey, and all 

reported that they would conduct the survey again in the future. They all agreed that the information 

collected would be valuable to them when communicating with their UOCAVA population and when 

discussing UOCAVA-related topics with legislatures and lawmakers.

Lessons Learned 

The SAUS pilot successfully supported participating states and jurisdictions in fielding a customer 

satisfaction survey among their UOCAVA voters to learn about their experiences with the voting 

process in the 2022 General Election. The goal was to support interested states and jurisdictions in 

fielding their own post-election survey. The assistance consisted of creating survey materials, stepby-step guides and programming the survey so the fielding process could be as seamless as 

possible with a low time burden for election officials. The pilot succeeded in its goals and provided 

valuable lessons that can be applied in potential future iterations of this project.

Recruitment of interested states and jurisdictions through the OVI working group worked well, and 

the goal of finding five participants of different types and sizes was successfully met with the 

assistance of CSG. However, the state of Kentucky dropped out of the pilot in late summer due to 

internal challenges in allocating resources to this project. Nevertheless, this was an isolated case, 

as the rest of the participants did not have any problems completing the process. During interviews 

after the pilot was completed, participating states and jurisdictions mentioned that the timing of the 

project worked for them and the time burden was low overall. 

One important point when considering future iterations of the project is that the fielding timing 

needs to be flexible. Since this project is conducted in a general election year, election officials are 

busy preparing and conducting primary and general elections. Sharing the survey with election 

officials during late spring/early summer allowed ample time for election officials to provide 

feedback and get the survey programmed and ready well before the election. Additionally, 

depending on the size and the resources available for each participant, fielding may start as early as 

late November/early December or may need to be delayed until the beginning of the new year. 
20

State Administered UOCAVA 

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Being flexible with the needs of each participant and adapting the fielding period ensures that the 

fielding can be completed smoothly without being a burden for participants.

For the 2022 SAUS pilot, two meetings were conducted with election officials. One in early summer 

to discuss the project and review the survey draft, and another in late November/early December to 

review the survey materials and prepare for fielding. We find that these two meetings make the best 

use of the election officials’ time. The first one can be conducted with several participants at the 

same time. For the second meeting, it is best to group participants depending on how they will be 

fielding the survey to ensure that the information discussed is relevant for all attendees.

Based on the feedback provided by participating states and jurisdictions, the toolkit materials 

(which included step-by-step guides and communication templates) were very useful to help them 

navigate the fielding process. They had positive feedback overall, mentioning that the materials 

were clear and easy to use. Having a survey draft ready by the first meeting and the materials 

available by the second meeting (right before fielding) proved to work with the election officials’ 

timing and gave plenty of time to the SAUS pilot working group to get the materials reviewed and 

ready.

One of the main benefits of this survey that was mentioned by all participants was that it provided 

them with “hard data” and quotes from their UOCAVA voters. This was of great value to them, as 

they mentioned that the data from this survey can be used when they discuss election 

administration with their legislatures and policymakers. Although national surveys provide general 

insight about the voters’ experience, this survey collected information directly from their 

constituents. Additionally, the open-ended questions provided detail about the selections made by 

the respondents.

The survey instrument also met the expectations during fielding. Not only did it collect information 

that was relevant for the participants, but it was completed by respondents in less than 10 minutes, 

as initially planned. However, some respondents reported the survey was too long, and some 

participating states and jurisdictions also suggested making the survey shorter in the future. Overall, 

over 90% of the people that started the survey completed it, suggesting that survey length did not 

have a great impact on whether or not respondents completed all questions. However, there is room 

for reducing the number of items. Some items that can be considered for removal are marital status 

and education, as these items were ultimately not used for weighting purposes. Also, some of the 

follow-up questions can be removed, depending on the needs of states and jurisdictions.

Another important aspect to consider for future iterations of the survey is the importance of sending 

reminders to the invitees. We saw in the pilot that most responses were clustered on the three days 

after the initial invitation or reminder was sent. In the 2022 SAUS pilot, some participants missed 

one of the reminders. During the post-fielding interviews, these participants mentioned that, in the 

future, to help them send the reminders on schedule, the SAUS pilot working group could reach out 

to them the day before to remind them about the upcoming delivery date. Additionally, among the 

participants that sent the invitations and reminders from their election offices’ accounts, some 

mentioned that they had to send the invitations in batches, and it could take hours, making this the 

most time-consuming part of the whole project. For future iterations, when the options to send 

invitations and reminders are discussed with participants, there should be a plan to provide 
21

State Administered UOCAVA 

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additional strategies to election officials to help them to make this step of the fielding process less 

time consuming.

The selection of an appropriate survey platform to conduct the survey was one of the most timeconsuming tasks for the SAUS pilot working group. Since the key capabilities needed for the survey

were identified in the pilot, this process should be easier in future iterations. However, the whole 

process depends on the availability of a corporate account to accommodate all the participants that 

do not have such an account on their own. Having this option available will ensure that states and 

jurisdictions interested in joining future iterations will be likely to participate, as it assures them that 

the participation cost will be low—consisting of only the time and labor spent in the fielding process. 

SurveyMonkey worked well overall and provided enough flexibility to program all of the skip logic 

needed and to personalize the survey with the logo and colors of each participant. Additionally, the 

state of Colorado—which accounted for the largest UOCAVA population of all participants—had their 

own corporate account, thus making it easier for the shared account to not exceed response or 

email limits. Participating states and jurisdictions also mentioned that the dashboard in 

SurveyMonkey allowed them to easily create visualizations of the results of the survey.

Finally, the weighting process proved to be important in order to make the results of the survey more 

representative of the actual UOCAVA population, as voters were overrepresented among survey 

respondents. The collection of information for weighting from the participating states and 

jurisdictions, however, had some challenges. The main obstacle was the complexity of the 

spreadsheet used to collect this information. Most participants needed additional instructions to be 

able to complete it. Additionally, there were some fields within the spreadsheet for which no 

participant was able to provide responses, as that information was not collected (e.g., marital 

status). For future iterations, we recommend that some unused categories are dropped and that 

there is an emphasis on the categories of age, gender, voter history, and email availability, as these 

categories were more readily available among participants and provided sufficient information for 

weighting purposes.

Conclusion 

Overall, the SAUS pilot was a success. Participating states and jurisdictions had positive feedback of 

their experiences and reported that they would participate again if the survey was conducted in the 

future. They noted that the survey results were useful to them for confirming some perceptions they 

had about their UOCAVA population’s voting preferences (e.g., desire to be able to track ballots and 

to return ballots electronically). It also provided them with “hard data” and actual quotes from voters 

to back those preferences from their voters. They mentioned that these results can help them 

support conversations when discussing these topics with their legislatures and lawmakers.

Additionally, the survey was focused on customer satisfaction, and had personalized items that 

provided localities with greater insight about potential improvements in their processes to help their 

UOCAVA voters in their voting journey.

The survey had response rates above 10% for all participating states and jurisdictions. Survey 

respondents included the spouses and eligible dependents from active duty military who are rarely 

surveyed, thus providing additional insights from a part of the UOCAVA population that is 

underrepresented in other survey efforts. Survey respondents, however, were mostly UOCAVA 
22

State Administered UOCAVA 

Survey Pilot 

registrants who voted in the 2022 General Election. Weighting procedures proved effective in 

ensuring that results were more representative of the actual UOCAVA population for each state and 

jurisdiction.

Importantly, the support of FVAP and the SAUS pilot working group was successful in reducing the 

burden for participating states and jurisdictions. The SAUS pilot working group created multiple 

guides and materials in addition to a draft of the survey, so participating states and jurisdictions did 

not have to invest much time during a period where they needed their full focus on preparing, 

conducting, and closing a general election. Participating states and jurisdictions, however, had 

ample time to review the survey and propose changes to ensure it met their needs and the 

information collected would be useful to them. Overall, participants noted that the time burden was 

low and the materials provided by the SAUS pilot working group made it very easy for them to field 

the survey.

The results of this pilot suggest that it would be feasible to conduct this process in the future with 

additional states and jurisdictions interested in receiving feedback from their UOCAVA voters about 

the voting process in their localities. With the help of the SAUS pilot working group in creating 

supporting materials, programming the survey, and providing survey platform credentials when 

needed, participants can obtain a large amount of information with a relatively low associated time 

burden.
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References 

Election Assistance Commission (2023). “Election Administration and Voting Survey.” Available at: 

https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/2023-06/2022_EAVS_Report_508c.pdf

Federal Voting Assistance Program (2023). “Data Standardization and the 2022 General Election.” 

Available at: https://www.fvap.gov/uploads/FVAP/Reports/2022-esb-research-notefinal.pdf

Kish, L. (1965) Survey sampling. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York.
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Appendix A: SAUS Survey Instrument 

Q1. Which of the following best describes your status as of November 8, 2022: 

- Active Duty Military (including National Guard or Reserve members on active duty orders)

- Spouse of an Active Duty Military member (including National Guard or Reserve members on active 

duty orders)

- Dependent of an Active Duty Military member (including National Guard or Reserve members on active 

duty orders)

- US Citizen living abroad

- None of the above [if selected, end survey] 

[if “ADM” is selected in Q1] Q1a. Which branch of the military do you serve? 

- Army

- Navy

- Marine Corps

- Air Force

- Coast Guard

- Space Force 

Q2. Did you return your absentee ballot or Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB) for the November 8, 

2022 General Election? 

-Yes

-No, I tried/wanted to vote but did not or could not complete the process

-No, I did not want to vote 

Q3. Which of the following best describes your status as of November 3, 2020 Presidential Election: 

- Active Duty Military (including National Guard or Reserve members on active duty orders)

- Spouse of an Active Duty Military member (including National Guard or Reserve members on active 

duty orders)

- Dependent of an Active Duty Military member (including National Guard or Reserve members on active 

duty orders)

- US Citizen living abroad

- None of the above 

Q4. Did you return a ballot in the November 3, 2020 Presidential Election? 

- Yes

- No

- Not sure

If Q1=ADM, spouse or dependent If Q1=Overseas Citizens 

Q5a. How many times have you voted as a member of the military, or as the 

spouse or dependent of a member of the military? 

- Never

- One time

- Two times

- Three times or more

Q5b. How many times 

have you voted from 

overseas? 

- Never

- One time

- Two times

- Three times or more 

If Q2= Yes (Voted in 2022) 

If Q2 = No, I tried... (Could not vote in 

2022) 

If Q2= No, I did not want 

to vote 

Q6a. Did you experience any of the following situations leading up to the 

November 8, 2022 election? (Select all that apply) 

Q6a_1 - I had difficulty registering to vote or requesting an absentee 

ballot. [if selected show Q6a_1_OE: Please describe the types of issues 

Q6b. Why where you not 

interested in voting in the 

2022 General Election? 

- I felt out of touch with 
25

State Administered UOCAVA 

Survey Pilot 

If Q2= Yes (Voted in 2022) 

If Q2 = No, I tried... (Could not vote in 

2022) 

If Q2= No, I did not want 

to vote 

you experienced for the situation(s) you selected in the previous question: 

I had difficulty registering to vote or requesting an absentee ballot]

Q6a_2 - My absentee ballot arrived too late or did not arrive at all. [if 

selected show Q6a_2_OE: Please describe the types of issues you 

experienced for the situation(s) you selected in the previous question: My 

absentee ballot arrived too late or did not arrive at all]

Q6a_3 - I had difficulty returning my ballot. [if selected show Q6a_3_OE: 

Please describe the types of issues you experienced for the situation(s) 

you selected in the previous question: I had difficulty returning my ballot]

Q6a_4 - I had difficulty with the mailing system. [if selected show 

Q6a_4_OE: Please describe the types of issues you experienced for the 

situation(s) you selected in the previous question: I had difficulty with the 

mailing system]

Q6a_5 - I was unsure what U.S. address to use on my absentee ballot. [if 

selected show Q6a_5_OE: Please describe the types of issues you 

experienced for the situation(s) you selected in the previous question: I 

was unsure what U.S. address to use on my absentee ballot]

Q6a_6 - I had difficulty accessing my state's election website. [if selected 

show Q6a_6_OE: Please describe the types of issues you experienced for 

the situation(s) you selected in the previous question: I had difficulty 

accessing my state's election website]

Q6a_7 - The voting process was too complicated. [if selected show 

Q6a_7_OE: Please describe the types of issues you experienced for the 

situation(s) you selected in the previous question: The voting process was 

too complicated]

Q6a_8 - Some other challenge (please specify) Q6a_8_OE

- I experienced no issues 

the issues in my

voting jurisdiction.

- The absentee voting 

process was too

complicated.

- I was concerned my 

absentee ballot

would not be counted.

- Some other reason 

(please specify)

Q7. In preparation for the 2022 primaries or General Election, did you use 

any of the following resources for voting assistance? (Select all that apply) 

Q7_1 - Federal Voting Assistance Program website (FVAP.gov)

Q7_2 - State or Local Election Office website

Q7_3 - [additional option(s) personalized to state/jurisdiction]

Q7_4 - U.S. Embassy/Consulate

Q7_5 - Military source [show only to ADM, spouses and dependents]

Q7_6 - Other sources (please specify) (Q7_6_OE)

- I did not use any resource for voting assistance 

 

[if any source selected in Q7] Q7a. What information were you looking for 

when you used these sources? (Select all that apply) 

Q7a_1 - Determining my eligibility to vote, my legal residency and/or 

voting jurisdiction

Q7a_2 - Obtaining and/or completing voting forms (e.g., Federal Post Card 

Application(FPCA))

Q7a_3 - Finding information on voting deadlines

Q7a_4 - How to send my ballot request and/or ballot back electronically 

(email/fax/online portal upload)

Q7a_5 - My local election office’s contact information

Q7a_6 - Information on how to register and/or how to request a ballot

Q7a_7 - Check on the status of my ballot request and/or my ballot

Q7a_8 - Information on candidates and local initiatives on the ballot

Q7a_9 - Information resolving an issue I was experiencing, or any other 

information (please specify Q7a_9_OE)

 
26

State Administered UOCAVA 

Survey Pilot 

If Q2= Yes (Voted in 2022) 

If Q2 = No, I tried... (Could not vote in 

2022) 

If Q2= No, I did not want 

to vote 

[show only if source was selected in Q7] Q7b. Which of the following 

statements best describes your experience when you looked for 

information on the Federal Voting Assistance Program website 

(FVAP.gov)? 

- I found the answer(s) to my question(s) quickly [if selected, show 

Q7b_Quick_OE: Please specify what information did you find quickly when 

using the...+ source]

- I found the answer(s) to my question(s), but it took a long time [if 

selected, show Q7b_Long_OE: Please specify what information took a long 

time to find when using the...+ source]

- I could not find the answer to one or more of my questions. [if selected, 

show Q7b_NotFound_OE: Please specify what information you could not 

find when using the...+ source]

[show only if source was selected in Q7] Q7c. Which of the following 

statements best describes your experience when you looked for 

information on your State or Local Election Office website? 

- I found the answer(s) to my question(s) quickly [if selected, show 

Q7c_Quick_OE: Please specify what information did you find quickly when 

using the...+ source]

- I found the answer(s) to my question(s), but it took a long time [if 

selected, show Q7c_Long_OE: Please specify what information took a long 

time to find when using the...+ source]

- I could not find the answer to one or more of my questions. [if selected, 

show Q7c_NotFound_OE: Please specify what information you could not 

find when using the...+ source] 

[show only if source was selected in Q7] Q7d. of the following statements 

best describes your experience when you looked for information in 

[additional option(s) personalized to state/jurisdiction]? 

- I found the answer(s) to my question(s) quickly [if selected, show 

Q7d_Quick_OE: Please specify what information did you find quickly when 

using the...+ source]

- I found the answer(s) to my question(s), but it took a long time [if 

selected, show Q7d_Long_OE: Please specify what information took a long 

time to find when using the...+ source]

- I could not find the answer to one or more of my questions. [if selected, 

show Q7d_NotFound_OE: Please specify what information you could not 

find when using the...+ source] 

[show only if source was selected in Q7] Q7e. Which of the following 

statements best describes your experience when you looked for 

information in your Embassy/U.S. Consulate? 

- I found the answer(s) to my question(s) quickly [if selected, show 

Q7e_Quick_OE: Please specify what information did you find quickly when 

using the...+ source]

- I found the answer(s) to my question(s), but it took a long time [if 

selected, show Q7e_Long_OE: Please specify what information took a long 

time to find when using the...+ source]

- I could not find the answer to one or more of my questions. [if selected, 

show Q7e_NotFound_OE: Please specify what information you could not 

find when using the...+ source]

[show only if source was selected in Q7] Q7f. Which of the following 

statements best describes your experience when you looked for 

information using Military sources? 
27

State Administered UOCAVA 

Survey Pilot 

If Q2= Yes (Voted in 2022) 

If Q2 = No, I tried... (Could not vote in 

2022) 

If Q2= No, I did not want 

to vote 

- I found the answer(s) to my question(s) quickly [if selected, show 

Q7f_Quick_OE: Please specify what information did you find quickly when 

using the...+ source]

- I found the answer(s) to my question(s), but it took a long time [if 

selected, show Q7f_Long_OE: Please specify what information took a long 

time to find when using the...+ source]

- I could not find the answer to one or more of my questions. [if selected, 

show Q7f_NotFound_OE: Please specify what information you could not 

find when using the...+ source] 

[show only if source was selected in Q7] Q7g. Which of the following 

statements best describes your experience when you looked for 

information using Other sources? 

- I found the answer(s) to my question(s) quickly [if selected, show 

Q7g_Quick_OE: Please specify what information did you find quickly when 

using the...+ source]

- I found the answer(s) to my question(s), but it took a long time [if 

selected, show Q7g_Long_OE: Please specify what information took a long 

time to find when using the...+ source]

- I could not find the answer to one or more of my questions. [if selected, 

show Q7g_NotFound_OE: Please specify what information you could not 

find when using the...+ source] 

Q8. Did you contact your election office by telephone, email, chat or direct 

message to address any questions or concerns? 

- Yes

- No

- Not Applicable 

 

[if “Yes” to Q8] Q8a. Did your election office generally respond to you in a 

timely manner? 

- Yes

- No

- Not Applicable 

 

Q9. How clear were the instructions provided by your election office on how to register to vote and/or 

request a ballot for the November 8, 2022 General Election? 

- Very clear [if selected show Q9_1_OE: Please describe why you rated the instructions provided by your 

election office as... “Very Clear”]

- Somewhat clear [if selected show Q9_2_OE: Please describe why you rated the instructions provided 

by your election office as... “Somewhat Clear”]

- Unclear [if selected show Q9_3_OE: Please describe why you rated the instructions provided by your 

election office as... “Unclear”]

- Did not receive instructions from my election office on how to vote or register to vote

- I don’t remember 

Q10. How did you receive your ballot? 

- Mail

- Email

- Fax

- Downloaded from an online portal

- In-person

- I used a FWAB / FVAP.gov

- Not Applicable

 
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State Administered UOCAVA 

Survey Pilot 

If Q2= Yes (Voted in 2022) 

If Q2 = No, I tried... (Could not vote in 

2022) 

If Q2= No, I did not want 

to vote 

[if received by email selected in Q10] Q10a. Did you experience any of the following difficulties with 

returning your ballot? (Select all that apply) 

Q10a_1 - Downloading the ballot

Q10a_2 - Finding access to a printer

Q10a_3 - Finding access to a computer with internet

Q10a_4 - Finding access to a fax machine

Q10a_5 - Finding an envelope

Q10a_6 - Printing the ballot and/or envelope

Q10a_7 - I found the envelope assembly process confusing 

Q11. How clear were the instructions provided by your election office on how to fill your ballot for the 

November 8, 2022 General Election? 

- Very clear [if selected show Q11_1_OE: Please describe why you rated the instructions to fill your 

ballot as... “Very Clear”]

- Somewhat clear [if selected show Q11_1_OE: Please describe why you rated the instructions to fill 

your ballot as... “Somewhat Clear”]

- Unclear [if selected show Q11_1_OE: Please describe why you rated the instructions to fill your ballot 

as... “Unclear”]

- Did not receive instructions from my election office on how to fill my ballot

- I don’t remember 

Q12. Do you wish there was another way to return your ballot? 

- Yes [if selected show: Please specify]

- No

- Don’t know 

Q13. Did you receive confirmation that your ballot was received by... 

- State’s online portal

- Email

- Telephone

- Text message

- No, I did not receive a confirmation that my ballot was received

- Not Applicable

 

[if “No” selected in Q13] Q13a. How confident are you that your vote in the 

November 8, 2022 General Election was received and counted?

- Very confident

- Somewhat confident

- Not too confident

- Not at all confident 

 

Q14. In your opinion, what would improve your voting experience? 

[open ended question] 
29

State Administered UOCAVA 

Survey Pilot 

Q15. Are you aware that your election office offers at least one electronic option for you to receive your 

blank ballot (either by email, online portal download, or fax)? 

- Yes

- No 

Q16. Are you aware that you can use a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB) as a backup ballot, in 

the event you do not receive your Official State Ballot in time? 

- Yes

- No 

Q17. Are you aware that the State of ___ offers the option to return your voted ballot by [fax, email, 

online] if you are overseas? This question only applies to participating states like Colorado and Florida

that offer some form of electronic ballot return 

- Yes

- No

- Not Applicable 

[if “US Citizen living abroad” is selected in Q1] Q18. How would you characterize the reliability of postal 

service in the country you were living as of November 8, 2022? 

- Very unreliable

- Unreliable

- Neither reliable nor unreliable

- Reliable

- Very reliable 

Q19. In the four months leading up to the November 8, 2022 election, did you have reliable access to 

the following? (Select all that apply) 

Q19_1 - Internet

Q19_2 - Fax machine

Q19_3 - Printer

Q19_4 - Scanner 

Q20. What is the best way for your election office to reach you with information about the voting 

process? 

- Postal mail

- Email

- Text

- Social Media

- Other (if selected ask to specify) 

Q21. In which County/Jurisdiction are you registered to vote? 

Q22. What is your gender? 

- Female

- Male

- Do not wish to answer

Q23. How old were you as of November 8, 2022? 

Q24. What country were you located at as of November 8, 2022? 

Q25. Are you Spanish/Hispanic/Latino? 

- No, not Spanish/Hispanic/Latino

- Yes, Mexican, Mexican American, Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, or other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino 

origins 

Q26. What is your race? (Select all that apply) 

Q26_1 - White

Q26_2 - Black or African American

Q26_3 - American Indian or Alaska Native

Q26_4 - Asian (e.g., Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese)

Q26_5 - Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander 
30

State Administered UOCAVA 

Survey Pilot 

Q27. What is the highest degree or level of school that you have completed? 

- Twelve years or fewer of school

- High school graduate—traditional diploma

- High school graduate—alternative diploma (home school, GED, etc.)

- Some college credit, but less than 1 year

- One year or more of college, no degree

- Associate degree (e.g., AA, AS)

- Bachelor’s degree (e.g., BA, AB, BS)

- Master’s, doctoral, or professional school degree (e.g., MA, Ph.D., JD)

Q28. What was your marital status as of November 8, 2022? 

- Married

- Separated

- Divorced

- Widowed

- Never married 
31

State Administered UOCAVA 

Survey Pilot 

Appendix B: Weighting Methodology 

The Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) State-Administered Uniformed and Overseas Citizens 

Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) Survey (SAUS) pilot survey was a census of UOCAVA citizens from 

Colorado, Escambia County (FL), Ingham County (MI), and Okaloosa County (FL), who were 

registered to vote on November 8, 2022, were residing outside the United States, who had a valid 

email, and who requested an absentee ballot for the 2022 General Election. Of the four 

participating states and jurisdictions, Escambia County (FL) did not provide demographic data for 

weighting, and thus was not included in the weighting process.

Only survey cases with complete demographic data received weights. Complete demographic data is 

with respect to the administrative demographic variables provided by the states and jurisdictions. 

Weights were calculated via calibration alone due to the lack of information on sample inclusion 

probabilities and population frame information to estimate differential response probabilities. The 

calibration aligned the weighted completed surveys with auxiliary population-level data provided by 

Colorado, Ingham County (MI), and Okaloosa County (FL). The auxiliary population-level data used 

for calibration involved the following demographic variables:

• Vote History (computed from Q2 and Q4)

o Vote History was coded into four categories: Voted Neither in 2020 or 2022; Voted in 2020 

Only; Voted in 2022 Only; Voted in Both 2020 and 2022

▪ Respondents that didn’t provide an answer to Q4 were treated as having not voted 

in 2020.

o This data was available for Colorado and Okaloosa County.

• Age (computed from Q23)

o Age group was coded into four categories: 18–24 years old, 25–44 years old, 45–64 years 

old, and 65+ years old.

o This data was available for Colorado, Ingham County (MI), and Okaloosa County (FL).

• Gender (computed from Q22)

o Due to the lack of an “Other” response in the survey, yet the presence of an “Other” category 

in the administrative data provided by the localities, “Other” was collapsed into “Female.”

o This data was available for Colorado, Ingham County (MI), and Okaloosa County (FL).

• Race/Ethnicity (computed from Q25 and Q26_1-Q26_5)

o Race/Ethnicity was recoded into five categories: Non-Hispanic White, Non-Hispanic Black, 

Hispanic, Non-Hispanic Asian, and Non-Hispanic Other.

o This data was available for Okaloosa County (FL).

To explore how different levels of information in the provided auxiliary population-level data impact 

the unequal weighting effect (UWE), which is the increase in variance due to weighting (Kish 1965), 

two sets of weights were created using different levels of information for each of the three localities. 

One set of weights used the marginal distribution of the available demographic variables for the

three different localities; namely, each demographic variable was used on its own during calibration. 

Another set of weights used the joint distributions of the available demographic variables; for 

example, vote history crossed with gender. Only joint distributions that were available in the auxiliary 

population-level data were used.
32

State Administered UOCAVA 

Survey Pilot 

For Okaloosa, a third set of weights was created that contained the available joint distributions for 

age, gender, and race/ethnicity as well as the marginal distribution for vote history. In this case,

there were detailed joint distribution data but there weren’t enough respondents to support all the 

joint distributions, which necessitated a mixed approach to ensure the data used for weighting were 

as detailed as possible while allowing the weights to converge.

In addition to exploring the impact different levels of information had on the UWE of weights, further 

investigation into how the inclusion of vote history impacts the UWE was conducted. For this 

exploration, two additional sets of weights were produced for Colorado and Okaloosa County that 

excluded data for vote history while maintaining the rest of the demographic variables. Table B1

shows the weights created during the overall exploration.

Table B1. Weights Created in Exploration. 

 Locality Weight Name Demographic Variables 

Colorado 

joint_col_weight_1* Vote History X Age, Vote History X Gender, Age X Gender

joint_col_weight_2 Age X Gender

margin_col_weight_1 Vote History, Age, Gender

margin_col_weight_2 Age, Gender

Ingham County 

(MI) 

joint_ingham_weight* Age X Gender

margin_ingham_weight Age, Gender

Okaloosa County 

(FL) 

joint_oka_weight_1**

Vote History X Age, Vote History X Gender, Vote History 

X Race/Ethnicity, Age X Gender, Age X Race/Ethnicity, 

Gender X Race/Ethnicity

joint_oka_weight_2 Age X Gender, Age X Race/Ethnicity, Gender X 

Race/Ethnicity

joint_oka_weight_3* Vote History, Age X Gender, Age X Race/Ethnicity, 

Gender X Race/Ethnicity

margin_oka_weight_1 Vote History, Age, Gender, Race/Ethnicity

margin_oka_weight_2 Vote History, Age, Gender, Race/Ethnicity

* denotes the main weights to use for analysis

** denotes the weights didn’t converge

Based on the results of Table B2, there appears to be a difference in the UWE between the sets of 

weights containing joint distributions and the sets of weights containing marginal distributions for 

Colorado and Okaloosa County (FL); however, this difference is only if vote history was included in 

the distributions. For example, the Okaloosa County (FL) weights with vote history using the joint 

distributions had a UWE of 3.85, a UWE of 3.49 when using the mixed distributions, and a UWE of 

3.38 when using the marginal distributions. Furthermore, the results in Table B2 suggest that there 

is a large difference in the UWE between the sets of weights that include vote history and the sets of 

weights that exclude vote history for both Colorado and Okaloosa County (FL). For example, the 

Colorado weights using the joint distributions of the demographic variables had a UWE of 5.85 with 

vote history and a UWE of 1.32 without vote history. This difference in UWE suggests that the 

inclusion of vote history in the weighting design increases the variability of the weights and hence 

increases the standard error of the estimators.
33

State Administered UOCAVA 

Survey Pilot 

Table B2. Unequal Weighting Effect: Variance Inflation Factor due to Weighting Design. 

SAUS Pilot 

Participant

Including Vote History Excluding Vote History 

Joint 

Distribution 

Mixed 

Distribution 

Marginal 

Distribution 

Joint 

Distribution 

Marginal 

Distribution 

Colorado 5.85 N/A 4.64 1.32 1.30

Ingham County (MI) 3.85 3.49 3.38 1.36 1.31

Okaloosa County (FL) N/A N/A N/A 1.06 1.13