Tag: Policy in the States

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Voting in Presidential Primaries and the General Election Differ for UOCAVA Voters

By Grace Gordon, Research Lead and Project Manager

Introduction

Presidential primaries work in unique and complex ways for overseas voters. Overseas citizens can vote in either their state-specific primary or, in some cases, a primary explicitly for overseas citizens. However, registering to vote in a presidential primary specifically for overseas citizens does not constitute registration for your state’s upcoming elections.

Before the 2024 presidential election, all overseas voters should ensure their state voter registration is up to date. To do this, overseas voters must double-check with their state or local election office ahead of the UOCAVA registration deadline for November’s presidential election. To ensure they receive their ballot in time, these voters should register using the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) or through the voters’ home state formal process.

Background

In 1986, Congress passed the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). This act permitted “absent uniformed services voters and overseas voters to use absentee registration procedures and to vote by absentee ballot in general, special, primary, and runoff elections for Federal office.” All states have designated processes for overseas voters to register to vote and cast a ballot. While the methods differ from state to state, all states accept the Federal Post Card Application as a form of registration for federal elections. For presidential party primaries, there are different methods for overseas voters to register to vote and cast a ballot.

In general elections, known as presidential elections, voters vote in their home state and electors in that state cast their vote for president based on the popular vote. Party primaries differ from the general election in several ways. Instead of electors casting votes based on the election results in each state or territory, delegates cast votes at the party convention. Each party has a different process for selecting delegates. Most delegates for the Democratic convention are chosen based on proportional representation. Whereas the Republican party primary uses a combination of proportional and winner-take-all representation decided by the states. Democrats Abroad is an organization that conducts a Global Presidential Primary for all overseas voters registered with the organization. Democrats Abroad receives several votes at the Democratic National Convention, which are allocated to delegates based on the results of the Global Presidential Primary.

Overseas voters who want to register to vote in the Democratic primary have two paths. They can register directly with Democrats Abroad and have their vote count towards the Democrats Abroad delegate allocation, or they can register directly with their state and put their vote towards their states’ delegates. There is no organization equivalent for registered Republicans, and Republicans living overseas must register with their state to vote in the Republican Party Primary.

All voters must register to vote for the general election in their state regardless of their political party affiliation. Voters registered with Democrats Abroad in the primary must ensure that their state registration is active through the state absentee registration process or use the FPCA to register and cast a ballot.

FPCA and Voter Registration Processes

The FPCA offers a streamlined, easy-to-use voter registration and absentee ballot request form for overseas voters. In some states, the FPCA is accepted as an application to vote for all state and federal contests; in others, it is just a request for federal contests. To access the form, qualified voters can go to https://www.fvap.gov/uploads/FVAP/Forms/fpca.pdf.

Most state election websites offer detailed instructions on registering as a UOCAVA voter. The state or municipal voter registration process may offer another option for voters who prefer to register directly with their state rather than using the FPCA.

The Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) has numerous resources for military and overseas voters seeking to register to vote in either the primaries or the general election. The following resources directly apply to this topic:

How to check your voter registration as an overseas voter

For overseas voters who cast a ballot in the primaries and are unsure if they are registered for the general election, the following steps can be used to check their voter registration in their home state:

  1. Do not rely on third-party groups to confirm voter registration status.
  2. Identify the state or local election office website, phone number or email.
  3. Contact an election official, ideally in the municipality where they are registered to vote. Some states offer a state voter registration lookup tool. In others, the overseas citizen will need to call or send an email to confirm their registration.
  4. Any overseas citizens who are not registered can register to vote in the primary using the FPCA or state/municipal voter registration process. The deadline to register for UOCAVA voters is 30 days before the general election for federal offices but varies for state and municipal elections.

Conclusion

UOCAVA voters face extra hurdles when voting abroad. These include delays in international mail, difficulty accessing printers to print ballots or other election materials and challenges delivering their ballots back to their election office. Many states allow voters to fax their ballots back to the US, though access to fax machines continues to dwindle worldwide.

Election officials do everything they can to ensure UOCAVA voters have equal access to the ballot. Still, if a voter does not register to vote and indicate their international address, election officials cannot send them a ballot. To complicate matters, some overseas voters may vote in primary elections explicitly for overseas voters. Overseas voters who voted in the Democrats Abroad Global Presidential Primary must register to vote for the general election in their state. Registration with Democrats Abroad does not imply registration with a state for the general election. To ensure overseas voters who want to vote in the general election can do so, all overseas voters should double-check their voter registration as soon as possible.

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Assigning an Address for Voting Purposes: How Election Officials Help Military and Overseas Citizens Vote

By Rachel Wright, Policy Analyst

Voters covered by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) face many challenges when attempting to cast their ballot. Both members of the military and overseas citizens often have limited access to technologies, such as printers and fax machines, that help them vote. Moreover, these voters often work or are stationed in remote areas where mail operations are intermittent or, in some cases, non-existent. 

Voter Registration and Determining Voting Residency 

For military and overseas citizens, voting barriers can often arise prior to ballot marking and return. Some UOCAVA voters may struggle to successfully complete their voter registration due to issues and uncertainties surrounding their residential address. Regardless of the state, voter registration laws require all voters to provide a residential address on registration materials. This address is considered the individual’s voting residence and determines which offices and candidates they are eligible to vote for. As a result, a voter’s residential address is often required to be located within the state where they are becoming a registered voter.  

Unlike traditional absentee voters, it can be difficult for military and overseas citizens to determine their voting residence. For example, many overseas citizens living abroad no longer occupy a residence in the United States. In these instances, overseas voters may still consider their last residential address in the U.S. as their voting residence even if they no longer have property or other ties to that state or if their intent to return to that state is uncertain. However, these voters may not remember the details of this address, or they may be unaware of their state’s laws on this issue. 

Similarly, military voters frequently change duty assignments which can result in their relocation to a new installation. In these instances, a voter may wish to establish residency or a domicile in their new duty location or remain a registered voter of their last residential address. As with overseas citizens, frequent reassignments can cause confusion regarding what is considered their residential address for voting purposes. They also may not remember the details of this address. 

The Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) has issued guidance on how UOCAVA voters should determine their voting residence. This guidance differs based on the type of UOCAVA voter. Guidance for military service members and their family members can be accessed at https://www.fvap.gov/info/laws/voting-residence. Guidance for overseas citizens can be accessed at https://www.fvap.gov/citizen-voter/voting-residence.  

Assigning an Address for Voting Purposes 

A small subset of UOCAVA voters may be able to identify and provide the details of their residential address but discover that this address is no longer considered valid for voter registration purposes. This can occur if a voter’s address is no longer considered a residence. For example, single-family homes or apartment buildings may be demolished for commercial development or following a natural disaster. Once the home or apartment building is torn down, the associated address is no longer considered a recognized residential address. This may occur more frequently among UOCAVA voters who have not lived at their voting residence for a significant period. 

If this situation arises, states do not prohibit military and overseas citizens from becoming a registered voter in the precinct of their address. Many states do not explicitly address these situations in statute and likely handle them on a case-by-case basis. However, 10 states — Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia — specify that the appropriate authority, often a local election official, can assign the voter an address solely for voting purposes as long as the voter meets the state’s residency requirements. This address must be within the same precinct as the voter’s residential address. 

For example, South Carolina S.C. Code Ann. §  7-15-660 states “an overseas voter who is registering to vote, and who is eligible to vote in this State shall use, and must be assigned to, the voting precinct of the address of the voter’s last place of residence in this State… If that address is no longer a recognized residential address, the overseas voter must be assigned an address within the voting precinct of the last place of residence for voting purposes.” 

Florida’s statute on the assignment of an address is wider in scope than other states. More specifically, a UOCAVA voter may be assigned an address even if their voting residence is still a recognized residential address. Florida law states that a voter who no longer has a permanent address in the county but intends to remain a resident of Florida and the county in which they are registered to vote may be assigned an address within the precinct of the office of the supervisor of elections. These procedures often apply to military voters who wish to register as a voter in the precinct of an address where they once lived, but no longer have any physical ties. In these instances, the local supervisor of elections will assign the voter an address for voting purposes. 

Implications for Voter Rolls and Election Mail 

The ability of military and overseas citizens to register to vote using their last residential address, or an address that was assigned to them can have significant implications for voter rolls and election mail. If an individual registers to vote using their last residential address, it is possible that those who currently live there are also using the same address to register to vote. As a result, voter rolls will show that multiple individuals are registered to the same address.  

Similarly, if a UOCAVA voter’s last residential address is no longer recognized as a residence, they may be assigned the address of the office of their local election official. There is currently no limit on the number of voters that may be assigned the same address, if they meet the qualifications specified in state statute. As a result, voter rolls will show that multiple people have registered to vote using the residential address of their local election office.  

Because of this, those who currently work or reside at the residential address associated with a UOCAVA voter’s registration may receive election mail that is directed toward the voter. This often happens when a voter’s residential address, rather than their mailing address, is used for mailing purposes. These situations do not imply that anything nefarious is happening or that a jurisdiction’s voter registration rolls are out-of-date. It simply means that a military or overseas citizen is registered to vote using that address.   

Ultimately, the experiences of UOCAVA voters are unique and the barriers they face are not confined to the request and return of their ballot. For some, challenges may arise as early as the voter registration process. The process of assigning a UOCAVA voter an address is solely intended to ensure that these voters can successfully register to vote and cast their ballot in an election. Without such efforts, these voters risk being disenfranchised. 

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Contingency Planning During COVID-19: Ballot Duplication in the States

Definition of ballot duplication

Throughout our blog series on ballot duplication, the Overseas Voting Initiative (OVI) has asserted that elections conducted during the coronavirus pandemic will likely yield a higher volume of ballots returned via mail or other methods.

As state primaries have come to a close, this assertion has often proven to be true. In the West Virginia presidential primary alone, slightly more than half of the state’s 436,000 votes were returned by mail. According to West Virginia Secretary of State Andrew “Mac” Warner, this constitutes a roughly 47% increase from previous presidential primaries.

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