Conference Report 

. 

Facilitating UOCAVA Voting Conference 

 

Monday, September 24, 2007 

First Floor Conference Room 

University of California, Washington Center 

1608 Rhode Island Ave. NW 

Washington, DC 20036 
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Table of Contents 

Conference Agenda............................................................. 3 

Participant List.................................................................... 5 

Working Session 1............................................................. 8 

Working Session 2............................................................... 12 

Working Session 3.............................................................. 15 

Working Session 4.............................................................. 18 

Conference Evaluation......................................................... 21 
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Conference Agenda 

8:00 – 8:30: Continental Breakfast Buffet 

Welcome, Introduction and Presentation of Research Findings 

• Time: 8:30 – 9:10

Speaker: Donetta Davidson, Chair, U.S. Election Assistance Commission 

 Opening Remarks and Welcome 

Speakers: Karin Mac Donald and Bruce E. Cain, Q2 Data & Research LLC

 Topic: Presentation of findings from the UOCAVA Voter Survey and Case 

Studies 

Speaker: Kimball W. Brace, President, Election Data Services Inc. 

 Topic: Presentation of key findings of EAC UOCAVA Report 

Working Session 1 - State Laws and UOCAVA Voting 

 Time: 9:10 - 10:45 AM 

 Facilitated discussion with primary involvement of state election officials 

 Facilitator: Leslie Reynolds, Executive Director, National Association of 

Secretaries Of State 

 Session Objective: Participants will determine what types of state laws are 

needed to move forward with better facilitation of UOCAVA voting, through 

technology and other means. 

Break 10:45-11:00 

Working Session 2 - Local Implementation of UOCAVA: Successes and Challenges

 Time: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM 

 Facilitated discussion with primary involvement of local election officials 

 Facilitator: Ann McGeehan, Director of Elections, Office of the Secretary of 

State, State of Texas 

 Session Objective: Participants will identify primarily non-technical 

implementation issues related to UOCAVA voting, practices that work, and 

resources needed. 

Break 12:30- 1:00 (opportunity for guests to obtain lunch off-site; participants can 

begin served lunch)
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Conference Agenda (cont.) 

Luncheon Session 

 Time: 1:00 - 1:45 PM 

 Speaker: TBA

Working Session 3 - UOCAVA and Technology: the overall picture

 Time: 2:00 - 3:30 PM

 Facilitation discussion with primary involvement of technologists and consultants 

 Facilitator: Mark Skall, Chief of the Software Diagnostics and Conformance 

Testing Division (SDCT), National Institute of Standards and Technology 

 Session Objective: Participants will discuss technology, security, and 

authentication issues and current viable solutions. 

Break: 3:30-3:45 

Working Session 4 - Technology: implementation details at the state and local level 

 Time 3:45 - 5:15 PM 

 Facilitated technology discussion with staff from state and local jurisdictions 

 Facilitator: Doug Chapin, Director, electionline.org 

 Session Objective: Participants will discuss challenges and resource needs with 

respect to applying technology to UOCAVA voting processes, especially 

implementation of electronic transmission of voting materials (registrations, ballot 

requests, blank and voted ballots).

Concluding Remarks 

 Time: 5:15 - 5:45 PM 

 Speakers: Bruce E. Cain/Q2

 and Donetta Davidson/EAC 

5:45 - 6:30 Informal wrap-up
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Participant List 

Adam D. Ambrogi, Counsel, Committee on Rules and Administration, U.S. Senate 

Brian Baysinger, Advisory Board Member, Overseas Vote Foundation 

Gineen Bresso Beach, Director of Legislative Operations and Counsel, Committee on 

House Administration, Republican Office, U.S. House of Representatives 

John Bodin, Managing Partner, Election Trust 

Marilyn W. Bowers, Executive Director, Board of Elections & Voter Registration, 

Charleston County, South Carolina 

Kimball W. Brace, President, Election Data Services Inc. 

Pauline (Polli) K. Brunelli, Director, Federal Voting Assistance Program 

Doug Chapin, Director, Electionline.org 

Beth Chapman, Secretary of State, State of Alabama 

Mike Coffman, Secretary of State, State of Colorado 

Donetta Davidson, Chair, U.S. Election Assistance Commission 

Samantha Duncan, Elections Program Specialist, Certification & Training Program, 

Office of the Secretary of State, State of Washington 

Joni Ernst, Auditor and Commissioner of Elections, Montgomery County, Iowa

David Franks, HAVA & OCVR Manager, Office of the Secretary of State, State of 

Oregon 

Lance F. Gough, Executive Director, Board of Election Commissioners, City of 

Chicago, Illinois 

Thomas Hicks, Senior Elections Counsel, Committee on House Administration, U.S. 

House of Representatives 

Gracia Hillman, Commissioner, U.S. Election Assistance Commission 

Juliet Hodgkins, General Counsel, U.S. Election Assistance Commission 

Tim Humphries, General Counsel, Office of the Secretary of State, State of Arkansas 
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Participant List (cont.)

Caroline Hunter, Commissioner, U.S. Election Assistance Commission 

Tim Hurst, Chief Deputy, Office of the Secretary of State, State of Idaho 

Mickie Kawai, Elections Manager, Washington County, Oregon 

Jeannie Layson, Communications Director, U.S. Election Assistance Commission 

Doug Lewis, Executive Director, The Election Center 

Paul A. Lux, Assistant Supervisor of Elections, Okaloosa County, Florida 

Karen Lynn-Dyson, Research Director, U.S. Election Assistance Commission 

Ann McGeehan, Director of Elections, Office of the Secretary of State, State of Texas 

Alan Miller, Elections Specialist, Elections Bureau, Office of the Secretary of State, 

State of Montana 

Barbara (Bobbie) Payne, Office Services Coordinator, Absentee Department, 

Montgomery County, Maryland 

Robert A. Pennisi, Chief Deputy Registrar of Voters for Voter Services, San Diego 

County, California 

Matthew Peterson, Chief Republican Counsel, Committee on Rules and Administration, 

U.S. Senate

Leslie D. Reynolds, Executive Director, National Association of Secretaries of State 

Rosemary Rodriguez, Commissioner, U.S. Election Assistance Commission 

Donna Royson, Deputy Executive Director, State Election Commission, State of South 

Carolina 

Doug Sanderson, Secretary, County Election Board, Oklahoma County, Oklahoma 

Alan T. Sherman, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Department of Computer 

Science and Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) 

and Member, National Center for the Study of Elections (NCSE) 

Howard G. Sholl, Jr., Deputy Administrative Director, Department of Elections, New 

Castle County, Delaware 
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Participant List (cont.)

Mark W. Skall, Chief, Software Diagnostics and Conformance Testing Division 

(SDCT), Information Technology Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and 

Technology 

Rachel Smith, Director of Elections, Anoka County, Minnesota 

Lori Steele, Chief Executive Officer, Everyone Counts Inc. 

Tim Storey, Senior Fellow, Legislative Management Program, National Conference of 

State Legislatures 

John P. Wack, Manager, Voluntary Voting System Guidelines, National Institute of 

Standards and Technology 

Rebecca J. Wertz, Deputy Chief, Voting Section, Civil Rights Division, U.S. 

Department of Justice 

J. Scott Wiedmann, Deputy Director, Federal Voting Assistance Program 

Thomas R. Wilkey, Executive Director, U.S. Election Assistance Commission 

Vickie R. Williams, Uniformed and Overseas Citizen Absentee Voting Act Coordinator, 

State of Virginia 

Patricia A. Wolfe, Elections Administrator, Office of the Secretary of State, State of 

Ohio 

Samuel F. Wright, Director, Military Voting Rights Project, National Defense 

Committee and Captain, JAG Corps, U.S. Navy (Retired) 

Vickie M. Zeier, County Clerk & Recorder/Treasurer, Missoula County, Montana 
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Working Sessions 

Working Session 1 - State Laws and UOCAVA Voting 

• Facilitator: Leslie Reynolds, Executive Director, National Association of 

Secretaries of State 

• Session Objective: Participants will determine what types of state laws are 

needed to move forward with better facilitation of UOCAVA voting, through 

technology and other means. 

Facilitator Leslie Reynolds asked the following question of two state-level election 

officials: “What laws have been enacted in your state to facilitate UOCAVA voting and 

what do you recommend to election administrators in other states who are seeking to 

enact similar laws?” 

Donna Royson, Deputy Executive Director of the South Carolina State Election 

Commission, addressed the question by explaining that South Carolina allows electronic 

transmission of balloting materials (faxing and emailing) for all UOCAVA voters, 

including military voters stationed out of state but still in the U.S. The state also has a 

special write-in ballot available 90 days prior to the election for UOCAVA voters to write 

in their candidate choices for each office up for election. They also have an instant 

runoff ballot for primaries, which UOCAVA voters receive along with the primary ballot, 

and use to rank their choices in event of a runoff. The primary runoffs are conducted two 

weeks after the primary and therefore it was previously almost impossible for UOCAVA 

voters to vote regular ballots in the runoffs. 

In terms of recommendations for other states, Ms. Royson stated that the South Carolina 

State Election Commission staff has succeeded with their legislature using the ‘nibble 

approach’ in which they just keep going back to the legislature every chance they get to 

improve UOCAVA voting. The Commission’s various Executive Directors have had a 

lot of vision and lead the effort to get these laws passed. It has also helped to find a highranking member of the legislature who has served in the military to sponsor and 

champion the legislation. In the 1990’s after the Gulf War, the Commission suggested 

adding the language ‘electronic transmission’ to the law, in anticipation of technology 

that might emerge. This language did not alarm legislators like ‘fax a ballot’ might have. 

The Commission also tries to put into legislation that state or local election officials can 

promulgate regulations and develop procedures to avoid having to come back to the 

legislature for minute issues. Finally, the threat of a lawsuit from the Department of 

Justice over the inability of UOCAVA voters to vote in primary runoffs forced the 

legislature to enact the instant runoff ballot provision. 

Alan Miller, Elections Specialist at the Montana Office of the Secretary of State, 

explained that Montana has enacted similar laws to South Carolina’s, in particular those 

that allow counties to offer voting by fax and email to UOCAVA voters. The state has a 

constitutional provision giving special consideration to service people and veterans, and 
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this has resulted in many helpful laws. They established the use of the federal write-in 

ballot (FWAB) for members of the military in the 1980’s, and later expanded use of this 

ballot to all UOCAVA voters. Additional legislative changes allowed the FWAB to be 

used for state and local offices, and to be accepted up to six days after Election Day. In 

their last session, the legislature passed a law allowing a person with power of attorney to 

request an absentee ballot on behalf of an absent military elector. 

Mr. Miller further explained that the Secretary of State’s Office has succeeded with their 

legislature also by nibbling at them (see South Carolina discussion above) and by finding 

bill sponsors with military experience. Since the Secretary of State is a partisan office, 

they also try to find a cosponsor from the other party, and they make sure that legislative 

leaders from all parties are on board. The Office tries to draft bills that are acceptable to 

the highest number of legislators without unnecessarily diluting the positive effects. Like 

South Carolina, Montana’s chief election administrator’s office is also working to have 

rule making capacity written into the legislation. 

Ms. Reynolds then posed a question to Vickie R. Williams, Uniformed and Overseas 

Citizen Absentee Voting Act Coordinator for the Virginia State Board of Elections: 

“What is the status of state laws in your state affecting UOCAVA voting and what is your 

objective in that area?” 

Ms. Williams answered that Virginia has enacted quite a few laws in recent years to 

support UOCAVA voting, and is working to do more. In particular, Virginia allows 

UOCAVA voters to vote in all elections, not just federal elections. Virginia also allows 

UOCAVA voters that are overseas in dangerous situations, to use an ‘early ballot’ for 

voting in the gubernatorial election. The state allows faxing and emailing of blank ballots 

to voters, but the legislature is not comfortable yet with allowing the emailing of voted 

ballots. The state also allows the FWAB to be used as an absentee ballot application, but 

as yet is not using the FWAB as a registration form. The State Board of Elections is a 

resource for the legislature, local election officials, and community groups on interpreting 

and explaining the state’s dense and complex election laws. The Board works closely 

with the legislature, analyses proposed legislation, and provides relevant history and 

facts. The Board supports a position of UOCAVA Coordinator, who provides this 

resource with respect to UOCAVA-related laws. When the Coordinator educates groups 

about the laws, these groups are often encouraged to put forth legislation. The 

Coordinator also works closely with local election officials to assist them in 

implementing new laws, which often requires changes in procedures that have been in 

place for 20-30 years. Because the Coordinator cannot enforce implementation of 

UOCAVA laws, open communication and collaboration with local election officials is 

critical. 

After the presentations, a discussion among all conference participants raised the 

following key issues and challenges: 

• Military voters move constantly and thus are ‘moving targets’ in terms of 

determining where to send their ballots. Enormous numbers of ballots are 
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returned as ‘undeliverable’ because of bad addresses and the two federal election 

cycle rule. 

• Security and authentication with respect to the electronic transmission of voted 

ballots, and in some states blank ballots, is a concern of legislators and local 

election officials. Some local election officials are uncomfortable with a plain 

paper ballot produced from faxing or emailing because they are used to paper 

ballots that have a watermark and are serialized. Some legislators are also 

concerned with the electronic transmission of blank ballots even though pilot 

programs have had no problems, and local election officials assure them that for 

each ballot sent only one can be counted (i.e. duplicated blank ballots cannot be 

voted and counted). One state election official asked: “Why do legislatures have 

such a concern about security when we have procedures for verification we 

already follow for regular absentee ballots, and in our state we even allow 

returned absentee ballots that aren’t the official ballot?” Faxed voted ballots can 

be looked at (compromising secrecy) but not stopped and/or altered; whereas 

emailed ballots can sit for days on a server and can be intercepted and altered. 

There is a tradeoff between total ballot security and getting the ballot counted. 

One participant noted that ballots cannot be treated like other items (e.g. tax 

forms) that are transferred electronically, because those items are overtly tied to a 

name and ballots are supposed to be secret. Another participant stated that other 

countries have been doing electronic transmission/internet voting for eight years 

and the U.S. is just unfamiliar with it, but the security is available and can be held 

to a high standard as it is with paper ballots. 

• Duplicating electronically transmitted ballots for optical scanning takes time. In 

Virginia ballots that are emailed to the voter have to be hand counted when they 

come back. 

• Candidate filing deadlines are late and make it hard to mail UOCAVA ballots in 

time. There are problems all over the country getting ballots from ballot vendors 

in time to mail out. One local election official says it is hard to meet the 45-day 

requirement to get ballots out to voters, and they can barely meet a 30-day 

deadline; last time this was because of a problem getting the ballots from the 

ballot vendor. 

• Some states require that the ballot be notarized, and some states require a witness 

for signing the ballot affidavit. 

During the discussion the following current and best practices were identified: 

• Local jurisdictions send letters to last known addresses to verify addresses. 

• A state system tracks where absentee ballots are sent so that if a military voter 

returns home can he/she can vote on Election Day. 

• A state election office works with USPS to expedite military ballots for federal 

elections. 

• Local jurisdictions email the list of candidates 30 days before the election to all 

overseas voters with email addresses, so that whichever ballot these voters use 

they know who the candidates are. 

• The sending of sample ballots is automated in the state database. 
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• A local election office isolates fax machines and faxed ballots, and carefully 

checks faxed oaths with signatures to validate ballots. 

• Communicating by email and mail with voters helps to spread the word about 

how to vote among people working together in overseas companies or locations. 

• Even with the waiver of the right to a secret ballot, the following is done to ensure 

secrecy: faxed or emailed ballots are sent to specific numbers or email addresses, 

and after printing the ballots those emails are deleted. These ballots are put in 

envelopes associated with the voters until Election Day when they are separated 

from the envelopes and counted and are no longer associated with the voters. One 

local election official receives faxed and emailed ballots on her computer, so she 

is the only one who could see how a voter voted. She checks the signature on the 

waiver without looking at the ballot, and then prints the ballot without the waiver, 

and the printed ballot goes to a duplicating board without a name attached. 

• One state creates a ballot in Word format to which they can quickly add 

candidates that file at the last minute and then immediately send this ballot to 

UOCAVA voters, rather than send the information to a ballot vendor first. This 

ballot is then duplicated to an optical scan ballot when returned. 

• A county election office works with the county mail service, local postmaster, 

main post office and military post officers to get ballots out at least 45 days before 

the election. The military postal service tells this county that they prefer 50 days 

to get mail to Iraq and Afghanistan. 

• If a state accepts a faxed voted ballot, it helps if it accepts ballots that are emailed 

to a fax machine, because in parts of Iraq there are no fax machines. 

• One jurisdiction accepts the date the voter signed the affidavit rather than the 

postmark. 

Participants made the following recommendations for effective strategies regarding the 

topics explored in this session, for promoting the use of electronic transmission and 

UOCAVA voting: 

• States should rewrite the secret ballot waiver to explain that voters must waive 

their privacy because the election official cannot help seeing the electronically 

transmitted ballot, but at the same time the election official is obligated to not 

share the vote choices with others. This is the same situation as assisting a voter 

in the voting booth with the marking of the ballot. 

• Election officials should pursue a state law that, if ballots are returned as 

undeliverable, local election officials do not have to keep sending election 

materials to the same addresses for four years. 

• States would benefit from federal funds to automate tracking and validating 

addresses for UOCAVA voters, including identifying those who register with 

overseas and military addresses but by some form other than the FPCA. 

• Federal legislation could support more uniform and more expansive electronic 

transmission practices across the states. 
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• State and local election officials pursuing legislation should have military voters 

testify before their legislature and tell their personal stories about not being able 

to vote. 

• Election officials should use the resources of NASS and NCSL to see what states 

allow and what legislation is proposed. Also, FVAP is a resource to help with 

getting state legislation passed. FVAP’s resources include sending legislative 

packets out each year, providing wording of legislation that has passed, and 

providing written and/or in-person testimony. 

Working Session 2 - Local Implementation of UOCAVA: Successes and Challenges 

• Facilitator: Ann McGeehan, Director of Elections, Office of the Secretary of 

State, State of Texas 

• Session Objective: Participants will identify primarily non-technical 

implementation issues related to UOCAVA voting, practices that work, and 

resources needed. 

Ms. McGeehan asked the following question of three local election officials: “What do 

you think are the major issues with facilitating UOCAVA voting at the local level and 

what practices do you find successful or would you like to see implemented?” 

Joni Ernst, County Auditor and Commissioner of Elections for Montgomery County, 

Iowa, responded that the two major issues are the undeliverable ballots to bad addresses 

and the length of time to get mail delivered overseas, especially to combat zones. Across 

the state the counties are frustrated with sending ballots, requested through FPCAs, to the 

same address for four years and getting most of them back, and it would help to get that 

timeframe shortened. Mail to combat zones takes a long time because of slow procedures 

like huge mail trucks not being moved until filled, and mail only being delivered every 

few weeks to remote locations. Electronic transmission is critical to stem this problem of 

late delivered ballots, and Iowa had an initiative for that in 2006 and hopefully will make 

it law someday. Federal law allowing electronic transmission with broad guidelines for 

states to follow would be ideal and help to standardize the process across the country. 

Howard G. Sholl, Jr., Deputy Administrative Director of the Department of Elections, 

New Castle County, Delaware, responded next that leadership and constant oversight in 

the local jurisdiction is important so that election staff give priority to UOCAVA voters, 

immediately process their applications, follow up on undeliverable ballots, and get 

UOCAVA voting issues resolved. It is also important to communicate among 

jurisdictions in the state and to communicate with the voters. This county asks 

UOCAVA voters for their email addresses so voting issues can be quickly resolved, does 

pre-mailing before the election to correct addresses, and includes newsletters with the 

pre-mailing and the ballots. They also keep in touch with the postal service and FVAP, 

and carefully examine and correct military and overseas addresses provided by voters. 

The voters often format or write the address in a way that they will not receive their mail 

such as ‘Iraq’ below a military address (which routes it into the domestic Iraq mail 
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system), or make a foreign address look like a U.S. one. The staff in this county is 

trained on how military addresses should look, and they have a guide to addresses in 

different foreign countries. They also use tools available on the USPS, royal mail system 

and Canadian mail system websites. Recently this jurisdiction had state election officials 

meet with FVAP and voting assistance officers (VAOs) at a local Air Force Base, so that 

state election officials could learn what FVAP is telling the VAOs. Mr. Sholl thought 

initially that the two general election cycle requirement for sending ballots was a bad 

idea, but then he found that in fact the turnout for the midterm election went up because 

they mailed ballots to people who normally wouldn’t request midterm ballots. 

Rachel Smith, Director of Elections for Anoka County, Minnesota, responded that her 

staff struggle with the fact that UOCAVA voters need an enormous amount of time and 

effort just at the busiest point of the election cycle. An ideal solution to take pressure off 

staff would be a web-based program that UOCAVA voters could walk themselves 

through to determine how to classify themselves and what they need to do to get a ballot 

and vote. The state allows emailing of a scanned FPCA only, but the current Secretary of 

State is pushing for emailing of ballots as well. This county is fortunate to do their own 

ballot programming so they can get paper ballots out to UOCAVA voters as soon as 

candidate filings close and do not have to wait for vendors to print ballots. They have 

one person dedicated to following up on undeliverable mail, by contacting family 

members or however they can find the latest address. With respect to the two federal 

election cycle requirement, there is also the problem of voters expecting to keep getting 

their ballot after the two cycles, and this county sent letters to them telling them they 

need to renew their applications. Ms. Smith would like to see a better standard for 

categorizing UOCAVA voters when the application is processed to avoid having to go 

back to audit the application later and to improve the data collected for the state and the 

EAC. 

After the presentations, a discussion among all conference participants raised the 

following key issues and challenges: 

• There was continued discussion of the issue raised in Session 1 that enormous 

numbers of ballots are returned as ‘undeliverable’ because of bad addresses and 

the two federal election cycle rule. 

• The state and federal level do not understand what the local level does. 

• It is nearly impossible in large jurisdictions to remake all non-standard ballots on 

Election Day if that is required by state. 

• Helping the National Guard is a special challenge because they are not UOCAVA 

until they are activated, so when they are activated they don’t know the 

UOCAVA voting process. Virginia is piloting a web tutorial just for National 

Guard members. 

During the discussion the following current and best practices were identified: 

• Local officials can have state officials be poll workers to teach the state officials 

what they are asking locals to do. 

• Local officials should partner with FVAP to get information disseminated and 

should adapt FVAP training to their state. Local officials should use resources 
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from FVAP including materials on their website, assistance by trained VAOs, and 

consulting and visits by FVAP staff. 

• State officials should hold regional training workshops throughout the state to 

make sure that all jurisdictions follow the same processes and have the same 

understanding of the law. Representatives from local jurisdictions should work 

together to develop a manual to be used across the state so that all jurisdictions 

follow the same procedures. 

• Local officials should enclose a notice with ballots that explains that U.S. mail, 

military mail, or dropping off the ballot at the embassy is postage paid, but putting 

ballots in an international mail system will require postage. 

• To market UOCAVA information, state election officials should join and speak to 

all kinds of different organizations (military-oriented as well as others like Target 

or Wal-Mart) so the word gets out to people who may become UOCAVA voters 

in the future. Local election officials in contact with military bases can do 

briefings just prior to deployment so that soldiers know what the voting options 

are when they get overseas. 

• If possible local officials should treat non-FPCA change of address forms as 

ballot requests. Florida allows counties to run a National Change of Address 

(NCOA) certification on the address list when the required ‘notice of election’ is 

mailed. Voters should be encouraged to submit a change of address to election 

officials just like they would for anything else. Units have a paperwork folder 

they leave before being deployed, so local officials can request that this folder 

include a change of address form. Local officials should encourage voters to give 

relatively permanent email addresses and/or alternative mailing addresses. Local 

officials should maintain a spreadsheet to keep track of UOCAVA voters and to 

record the results of pre-mailing to validate addresses. One state has a website that 

allows voters to change addresses online, and that information is forwarded to the 

counties. Online registration might also help voters keep their information 

updated. Some states have voter registration verification websites where voters 

can determine if their FPCAs were received, whether they are registered, and in 

some cases can update their information. 

• Local officials should send notes to voters (with voting materials) explaining the 

elections for which they will continue to get ballots. If their state allows it, local 

officials should accept each communication from voters as a new request and start 

the clock over with respect to the FPCA expiration. 

• Overseas Vote Foundation has a web portal with state by state information for 

voters and a module to be offered to states at minimum cost to streamline 

information flow to voters. 

Participants made the following recommendations for effective strategies regarding the 

topics explored in this session, for promoting the use of electronic transmission and 

UOCAVA voting: 

• The federal and state levels should communicate with the local level. Local 

officials should use the forthcoming EAC Management Guidelines and Quick 

Start brochure for UOCAVA voting issues. 
15

• Other states should join Illinois in having 14 days to receive and process absentee 

ballots to help out overseas voters and local jurisdictions which must duplicate 

thousands of absentee ballots. Local jurisdictions should have up to six days 

before the election to start processing the thousands of absentee ballots. 

• There should be federal legislation to provide guidance, rather than each state 

experimenting on its own. For example, a federal law authorizing the use of the 

FWAB for elections other than federal general elections would be better than each 

state having to amend their law to allow this. A national standard would help 

military voters in combat so that VAOs do not have to sift through 50 different 

state laws, and soldiers serving together get the same opportunity to vote 

regardless of their home state. States must work with the EAC to develop national 

guidelines, rather than federal law being imposed or guidelines being developed at 

the federal level only. States must collaborate and share information to serve 

UOCAVA voters, or consult the FVAP guide, so that each state can help 

UOCAVA voters from other states. 

• Local officials must make sure voters know they can chose on the FPCA to opt 

out of continuing to receive their ballots ‘the same way’ for two federal election 

cycles. 

Working Session 3 - UOCAVA and Technology: the overall picture

• Facilitator: Mark Skall, Chief of the Software Diagnostics and Conformance 

Testing Division (SDCT), National Institute of Standards and Technology 

• Session Objective: Participants will discuss technology, security, and 

authentication issues and current viable solutions. 

Facilitator Mark Skall posed the first question to Professor Alan Sherman: “What should 

the security requirements be for military and overseas voting?” 

Prof. Sherman explained that voting systems should have end-to-end security, meaning 

that a voter can verify that the vote was correctly recorded and tabulated. There are no 

systems in use at this time with this capability. However, the technology is there to 

provide systems with better integrity and privacy. Such systems would involve a public 

website on which a voter can check an encrypted form of the ballot to make sure that it 

was posted correctly, and on which any interested party could verify that the tallies were 

properly computed. 

While the technology is available in the research community, and the “punch scan” 

system has won first place in a competition, the technology is not yet ready to go 

commercial at this point, but it might be ready in two to four years if a company made a 

serious effort to produce such products. There are frustrating delays in going from the 

research lab to a commercial product. There should be more funding at the federal level 

to develop such technology, and the free market should be encouraged to help turn ideas 

into products. 
16

 

The second question from Mark Skall was directed to his colleague John Wack of NIST 

(National Institute of Standards and Technology), to whom he asked what the TDGC 

(Technical Guidelines Development Committee) position is on the availability of 

technology to handle security issues. 

Mr. Wack responded that the TDGC report that was posted on the EAC’s website does 

not address internet based voting much, but rather deals with basic standards, 

requirements and testing. There are two major issues in overseas and military voting, one 

involves speeding up the registration process which is largely an organizational issue, and 

that is being worked on and improved. The second issue of internet based voting is much 

more difficult for two reasons, one being the protocol itself and the second being general 

internet security, i.e. trusting that the infrastructure is going to work. The approach 

should be to fund pilot projects, but the registration issues should be resolved before 

moving on to the voting side. IT security people tend to think that pilots will become 

practice so they want to make sure the pilots are done correctly, which involves many 

issues including establishing that the ballot came from a registered voter in addition to the 

security aspects. Pilots should be done in collaboration with IT experts and people on the 

county levels. Mr. Wack agrees with Prof. Sherman that it would take a project about 

two years from pilot to product stage, if sufficient research funding were directed to it. 

Mr. Bodin, managing partner of Election Trust, answered the final question of the 

session: As a technology vendor, what are you doing to overcome some of the security 

and authentication issues in military and overseas voting? 

He agreed that universally verifiable elections are the goal. For overseas and military 

voting, pilots with local election officials in real world environments will produce 

valuable information and the next steps required. One example is a pilot project in 

Okaloosa County, Florida, which will have up to 900 military voters overseas in three 

locations cast ballots over the internet in the presidential election of 2008. Authentication 

will be provided by deputized poll workers from the county that will be opening up three 

early voting sites. They will be able to access online voter registration for real time 

verification of the voter. Voting machines in forms of kiosks will boot from a secure CD 

that was verified by the Secretary of State, and will be in full custody of the poll worker. 

Ballots will be electronically transmitted to the county server, which is set up to only 

accept ballots with signatures from the kiosks. Voters will be able to verify that the vote 

has been cast, but not how they voted. They are exploring the latter issue with another 

vendor (Vote Here). Once the votes are received in Okaloosa County, they will be 

electronically shuffled and combined with the regular ballots. The encrypted event log 

would show tampering, and this is a transparent process to the voter. 

Following are comments from the participants regarding key issues and challenges, and 

current and best practices: 
17

• It is important to note that there have been secure electronic elections over the 

internet internationally since 2000, and there are many innovations and existing 

systems out there. Election administrators should decide what their needs are, 

look at the availability of existing technology and being to pilot the 

implementation processes by engaging state and national authorities. The UK 

government put together a team of vendors and organizations to establish a fouryear plan for the establishment of the best technology in the world for electronic 

voting. The development will be funded by the government in hopes that the 

resulting solutions are cheap enough for local jurisdictions to purchase. Current 

solutions, while not perfect, are the best there are and are better than paper. 

• IT people have to communicate in non-techno-speak with those that don’t have 

technical backgrounds, otherwise neither the public nor election administrators 

will be able to understand them, or be willing to do pilot projects. Techno-speak 

holds back innovation by making issues more complicated than they are. Election 

processes are simple and adding technologies do not necessarily make them more 

difficult. 

• The American public is risk averse at this point due to having been forced to use 

technology that turned out to have problems, at the polling places following the 

2000 election, but the pilots that are being discussed would be voluntary 

participation, which would make a big difference. 

• Development of technology should not only focus on registration, but be parallel 

on all issues, to speed up innovation. Experimenters should not be afraid to make 

mistakes as they are valuable and teach us to ask the proper questions. 

Experimentation is worthwhile even if it may not work; one won’t know until 

testing. 

• Regarding online registration to vote, one problem is the need to compare and 

verify signatures when most people do not have access to a signature pad. It is 

also not possible to compare a digital signature to an ink signature in the polling 

place, which is another disconnect. Implementation of a statewide voter 

registration system has shown to have many bugs and the fear is that opening it up 

to voters to add their information might make it more error prone. 

Participants made the following recommendations for effective strategies regarding the 

topics explored in this session, for promoting the use of electronic transmission and 

UOCAVA voting: 

• An internet based electronic voting system would have to be funded by the 

Department of Defense or another federal agency. 

• The implementation is too big of a political target coming from the top down so it 

may need to be done from the bottom up. 

• Addressing the basic issues through technology can make people more 

comfortable to eventually feel secure enough to use Internet voting (think online 

banking). 

• Pilots might involve students voting from abroad, who are more comfortable with 

technology. Members of the armed forces have a common access card which 

would get around the authentication issues. 
18

• Conducting pilot programs will assist in the comfort level of the public and help 

in developing easier to understand explanations to the common person. 

• Experiments should be issued waivers and pilot projects should be allowed. 

• Conference attendees should develop a unified script or document to talk to their 

Legislatures and Secretaries of State, to gain permission to do a pilot project, so 

that calculated risks can be taken. It would be important to have everyone on the 

same page, as a community, to reassure participating voters that while there are 

some issues regarding security, secrecy and such, that election administrators are 

aware of them and are studying the issues so that progress can be made. 

• The Federal government should fund voting research. HAVA was supposed to 

include tens of millions of dollars for research but money was never allocated. 

Rather than spending money on large voting companies to supply DREs, 

government should harness the power of the free market to encourage research in 

better voting systems. Small companies with better solutions are going bankrupt 

due to lack of research funds. 

• The major lesson learned from the SERVE implementation is that pilot projects 

have to be collaborations between the IT community and all other parties 

involved, in a transparent, public manner that allows for feed-back and peer 

review. It can not be done behind closed doors by simply appealing to the public 

trust. 

• The public perception and the climate of fear have to be turned around to advance 

awareness of the processes that have already been developed. 

Working Session 4 - Technology: implementation details at the state and local level 

• Facilitator: Doug Chapin, Director, electionline.org 

• Session Objective: Participants will discuss challenges and resource needs with 

respect to applying technology to UOCAVA voting processes, especially 

implementation of electronic transmission of voting materials (registrations, ballot 

requests, blank and voted ballots). 

Mr. Chapin opened this session by asking the following question of three respondents: 

“What technological/computing resources does your jurisdiction and/or state need to 

facilitate UOCAVA voting, especially electronic transmission of voting materials 

including registrations, ballot requests, blank and voted ballots?” 

Paul Lux, Assistant Supervisor of Elections, Okaloosa County, Florida, was the first 

respondent. Aside from the basics, which include hardware and software, email access, 

etc, what election administrators need is laws in the state that allow for innovation and 

pilot projects. An additional factor is to have funds available to conduct projects. 

Regarding state laws, they need to be vague and open-ended enough to allow for 

experiments. For example, Florida’s law allows for emailing, faxing and “other means of 

secure electronic transmission,” which gives election administrators the opportunity to 

use the internet in a pilot project as long as they ensure that it is secure. If all those 

factors are in place (funds, laws, hardware and software), then the remaining necessity 

would be to have time to implement it, especially in case of a mandated implementation. 
19

It takes months of preparation to run an election and procedures for new mandates have 

to be developed which takes time. 

Lance Gough, Executive Director, Board of Election Commissioners, City of Chicago, 

Illinois answered the question next. He noted that the biggest problem to the 

implementation of internet or email voting currently is that there are no laws that would 

allow him to conduct it. Lawmakers are not interested in changing a system that has 

served to elect them in the past. The issues with de-certification of polling place voting 

equipment have made matters worst. Another point to consider is the fact that while 

some jurisdictions are well funded and thus computerized, other jurisdictions are on the 

opposite spectrum, sometimes without computers or even fax machines. Even when the 

state of Illinois tries to offer them computers, they are reluctant to accept them because 

they are set in their ways. The funds for internet voting or more advanced electronic 

transmission of voting materials should come from the federal government along with the 

laws that mandate its implementation. 

Samantha Duncan, Elections Program Specialist, Office of the Secretary of State, 

Olympia, Washington, was the final respondent to this question. In contrast to Illinois, 

the jurisdictions in Washington all have hardware and software, very good computer 

systems and their own fax machines. They are all able to produce pdfs to send out email 

ballots. However, there are vast differences in the funding the individual jurisdictions 

have, based on the number of voters. Some have a very small staff that has to struggle to 

implement the numerous requirements from the federal and state government. There is a 

need for money and training: all the equipment in the world will not help if users are not 

trained in how to operate it, or if they have no time to learn it because doing so would 

take them away from another job. One Washington jurisdiction has developed a program 

that automatically sends every UOCAVA voter the proper ballot via email. Voters also 

receive a hardcopy ballot. Voters have to print the emailed ballots and mail them back 

because Washington law does not allow for voted ballots to be received in another way. 

 

Following are comments from the participants regarding key issues and challenges, and 

current and best practices: 

• A system is currently available via the Overseas Vote Foundation (OVF) website 

that lets UOCAVA voters fill out registration forms online via drop-down menus 

that ask only the information that is needed for each respective state. This system 

goes somewhat toward providing a solution on the registration issue, but for 

voting and registration, due to the differences in the size and funding of the 

thousands of jurisdictions, innovation will be implemented in small steps. 

• UOCAVA voters have reported that they are interested in communicating with 

their election administration office directly and for this there is a directory of all 

election administrators available on the OVF website. 

• UOCAVA voters do not have to be registered to vote if they are using the Federal 

Post Card Application (FPCA), because that serves as a ballot request and a 

registration. It is important to use the right terminology when talking about 

UOCAVA voters, and not to confuse registration with a ballot request. 
20

• The FPCA should be renamed because it is no longer a ‘post card’ and does no 

longer display identifying information to anyone who sees it. It is now a fold-over 

form. It should be renamed to FUOVA, the Federal Uniform and Overseas 

Voting Application, which would also clarify who is eligible to use it. However, 

there are also thousands of old FPCAs out there that are still being used. 

• Simply mailing the FPCA to an election administrator does not make a UOCAVA 

voter necessarily eligible to vote in the given jurisdiction. Voters need to be 

educated on the domicile requirement for the respective state. 

• The National Conference of State Legislatures as a group has been somewhat 

disconnected from the process, but there is a new project called “Engaging State 

Legislators in Election Reform,” which will attempt to pursue this topic via a 

network of election chairs from the national perspective. 

• One of the continuing obstacles for election administrators dealing with 

UOCAVA is that legislators in general still don’t know who UOCAVA voters 

are. They still think that UOCAVA only covers uniformed members of the armed 

forces and not civilians, peace-corps members, and other overseas citizens, all of 

whom make a difference and vote. 

• There is a very persistent rumor out there that absentee votes are only counted in a 

close election. This breeds distrust in the system and needs to be dispelled 

somehow so that trust with that community can be built again. 

• Legislators need to remember that they are talking about members of the armed 

forces in addition to overseas civilians. There are various examples of overseas 

voting being studied with respect to internet voting, for example under Secretary 

Jones in the late 1990s in California, when military members were not even 

mentioned as an overseas voting group. In a last minute candidate substitution in 

New Jersey in 2002, absentee voters were sent a pre-paid overnight envelope that 

could only be used within the United States, along with the new ballot. Military in 

Afghanistan could obviously not use that envelope and were thus left without 

options. 

• The 70% undeliverable rate is likely inflated due to the fact that the law requires 

that UOCAVA voters stay on the rolls for two election cycles. UOCAVA voters 

do participate. A study should be conducted to assess how many undeliverable 

addresses are on the rolls. 

• The military also has to take responsibility and make sure that everyone has 

access to a Voting Assistance Officer. 

Participants made the following recommendations for effective strategies regarding the 

topics explored in this session, for promoting the use of electronic transmission and 

UOCAVA voting: 

• The absentee ballot envelope system should also be revised so that identifying 

information will be on the inside of the mailing envelope, not on the outside. 

With identify theft on the rise, this is very important. 

• One company has developed the WebX system that is in use in Washington State 

for many large and small jurisdictions. It allows ballots to be tracked. It requires 

set-up with the local authorities and allows the company to provide support and 

maintenance to users and walk them through the process. 
21

Conference Evaluation 

Total number of responses: 21 

1. Did this conference provide a helpful forum that highlighted challenges and 

provided ideas or solutions to facilitate UOCAVA voting? Please elaborate. 

All respondents answered YES. 

Comments included the following: 

“...great forum for an exchange of ideas.” 

“...very helpful. It gave me many ideas that we may try to implement...” 

“...ability to meet and have open and productive discourse and exchange of ideas: 

wonderful!” 

“...good to get ideas from other states.” “great to hear different approaches from 

counties/states” 

“...results and information shared ... was most helpful... all the pilot 

projects actually. ...nice to have group involvement and interaction' 

“Good assortment of panel members - general level of knowledge good - 

appreciate high level federal officials that attended” 

“...learned about difficulties, met key people, weak on solutions.” 

“...forum provided a platform for creative solutions.” “...need more discussion about 

implementation on local level [about funding for training, staffing and equipment]” 

“Fantastic forum. ...facilitator asking a group of selected individuals lead questions 

worked well with jump starting group discussion” 

“Great conference! Very worthwhile. Critical to gaining a better understanding of the 

issue and to defining solutions.” 

“Provided contacts for possible legislative changes within our state. Excellent discussion 

on problems, concerns and possible solutions.” 

2. What would you do differently (e.g. the conference, research on UOCAVA voters, 

etc.)? 

Conference suggestions: 

“Change lay-out of room to have facilitator at head of table” “...change seating so that 

everyone can see each other” 

“Send questions in advance” 

“Most productive conference I have attended on the federal level” 

“Would have liked to have heard from companies that actually conduct internet/webbased elections” 

“Invite members of military and/or overseas citizens to participate” 
22

“Add break-out sessions...for state and local officials ...to put proposals together and 

exchange ideas” 

“...need another conference that focuses on solutions” 

“Hands-on training” 

Research suggestions: 

“We need to know sooner what information needs to be tracked to enable us to give you 

better, more accurate information to do better studies” 

“[need to know data requests] clearly defined and at least one year in advance” 

“Verification of data gathered before being distributed” 

“Need better numbers from military: what percentage of eligible voters are not 

registered?” 

3. What should the EAC’s next steps be in the area of UOCAVA voting? 

Comments included the following: 

“Work on definitions of data you will be requesting” 

“Fund pilot projects” “support pilot projects” “encourage pilot projects” “pilots are 

necessary” (numerous responses) 

“...assist with the legal framework and financially” 

“Figure out whether states can partner with DoD to use military ID/password for 

verification of online registration” 

“Support FVAP in their efforts to develop a secure election system for UOCAVA voters” 

“Work to create uniformity for UOCAVA voters (timelines to return ballot, modes of 

transmission, what forms are accepted) 

“Set up more working conferences with states/locals” 

“Get simple things done first...internet voting is too big a challenge...get ballots out in 

time should be place to start” 

“Truly study internet voting – provide concrete answers to questions raised today and 

true guidance” 

“FVAP provides suggestions to states to make legislative changes – EAC work closely 

with FVAP to recommend standards/procedures for all states; work with DoJ on 

recommended procedures for undeliverable mail.” 

“Develop and distribute best practices and guidelines for registration and voting.” 

“Conduct a study of the 2-year cycle of an FPCA request – find sample jurisdictions to 

try it.” 

“Standardize processes” 

“Lobby federal legislators to allow states to pursue innovative [ideas]...” 

“[work to] repeal the 2-cycle requirement or facilitate it with money for staffing, 

equipment and software necessary to automate it” 

“[Investigate] vote by phone options” 

“Fund research projects...facilitate innovation and pilot studies...launch national “grand 

challenge”...hold workshops on targeted issues. 
23

“Provide consistent set of guidelines for UOCAVA voting...prepare a plan for the future 

of internet voting” 

“Technical suggestions for handling email ballots...most secure method to transmit the 

info...suggestions on software that would allow UOCAVA voters to complete a ballot 

electronically without having to print, mark, re-scan and send the completed ballot” 

“Distribute ideas from this conference” 

“Develop internet voting guidelines” 

“Set up a blog or email list serve to facilitate communication and collaboration [among 

conference participants]” 

“Poll the states and localities re: UOCAVA best practices and how to implement good 

legislation.” 

4. What should the EAC’s next steps be in the area of Internet voting? 

Comments included the following: 

“Propose/support federal guidelines or laws on electronic voting/transmission, but not too 

specific so states can keep some autonomy and discretion as to how they do it.” 

“Combat the “climate of fear...electronic voting works well and if there’s an issue, it 

tends to be procedural not systematic system issues.” 

“Duplicate existing systems that have been proven to be secure and implement for 

voting... move forward – at least do experiments” 

“Select counties/states for pilots and collect data from jurisdictions that have performed 

internet voting” 

“Pilots! ...stigma of internet voting will go away after a few successful pilots. Support 

development of legal framework and acquisition of funding.” 

“Focus on accurate and up-to-date voter information. People should always be able to 

download their ballot.” 

“Provide minimum standards for states wishing to implement electronic transmission of 

ballots...encourage pilots with federal funding or grants.” 

“Start with one or two jurisdictions and show that it works” 

“Push for innovation...we want UOCAVA votes to be counted but we also want the 

public’s perception that it is a safe and secure means of voting.” 

“Encourage more real-time projects so more studies can be accomplished. The better we 

know what ‘doesn’t work’ the sooner we will discover what does!” 

“Work with FVAP”