STATE ADMINISTERED UOCAVA SURVEY PILOT

To improve the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) voting 

process through partnerships with state and local election offices and support independent data 

collection by states and jurisdictions, FVAP piloted the State Administered UOCAVA Survey 

(SAUS) pilot. The pilot focused on assisting states and jurisdictions in fielding a customer 

satisfaction survey of their UOCAVA voters to better understand the experiences of this 

population during the 2022 General Election voting process.

To assess the feasibility of this effort, FVAP designed the pilot recommending no more than five

states and jurisdictions of different UOCAVA population sizes. The Council of State 

Governments (CSG) Overseas Voting Initiative (OVI) recruited states and localities, provided

communications support, hosted the SAUS survey through SurveyMonkey, assisted with survey 

design and provided help desk support for the participating jurisdictions.

The analyses in this research note found that: 

• States and localities found the collected information valuable to better understand the 

needs of the UOCAVA population and noted that having data and quotes from actual 

voters is very useful when discussing election administration requirements with their 

legislators and election boards. This also allows additional opportunities to highlight the 

importance of the UOCAVA population.

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

and eligible dependents of active duty military who may be underrepresented in other 

survey efforts. 

• Survey response rates were above 10 percent for all participants and reached 29.5 percent

for Ingham County (MI). Over 90 percent of respondents that started the survey 

completed it. 

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

whereas the voting rate in most of the participating states and jurisdictions for all voters

was below 50 percent. Survey weights help make the results more representative of the 

reference population.

• The SAUS pilot working group aided in drafting and programming the survey, creating 

accompanying materials, and assisting in the fielding process. This allowed participating 

states and jurisdictions to successfully field the SAUS pilot with a low time and resource 

burden. Participating states and jurisdictions had positive experiences and reported that 

they would participate again.

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

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

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

resulting data as well as the lessons learned through the pilot process and considerations for 

potential future SAUS efforts.
To review the Executive Summary: click here.

To review the full technical research report: click here.

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For more information on FVAP or assistance with the absentee voting process, 

visit FVAP.gov call FVAP at 1-800-438-VOTE or DSN 425-1584 (CONUS)/312-425-1584 

(OCONUS), or email vote@fvap.gov. Remember, you also can contact your unit or installation 

voting assistance officer for assistance during any step of the 

process. Facebook.com/DoDFVAP; Twitter @FVAP. Additional Information for non-UOCAVA 

Uniformed service members, their families, and Department of Defense civilians who are 

currently stationed in the same location as their voting address may visit vote.gov to register to 

vote and request information from their local election office to vote locally.