[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 134 (Monday, July 13, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 41967-41968]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-15082]
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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Office of the Secretary
[Docket ID: DoD-2020-OS-0066]
Proposed Collection; Comment Request
AGENCY: Federal Voting Assistance Program, Defense Department (DoD).
ACTION: Information collection notice.
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SUMMARY: In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the
Federal Voting Assistance Program announces a proposed public
information collection and seeks public comment on the provisions
thereof. Comments are invited on: Whether the proposed collection of
information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of
the agency, including whether the information shall have practical
utility; the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the
proposed information collection; ways to enhance the quality, utility,
and clarity of the information to be collected; and ways to minimize
the burden of the information collection on respondents, including
through the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of
information technology.
DATES: Consideration will be given to all comments received by
September 11, 2020.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by docket number and
title, by any of the following methods:
Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the
instructions for submitting comments.
Mail: DoD cannot receive written comments at this time due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. Comments should be sent electronically to the docket
listed above.
Instructions: All submissions received must include the agency
name, docket number and title for this Federal Register document. The
general policy for comments and other submissions from members of the
public is to make these submissions available for public viewing on the
internet at http://www.regulations.gov as they are received without
change, including any personal identifiers or contact information.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: To request more information on this
proposed information collection or to obtain a copy of the proposal and
associated collection instruments, please contact the Office of
Information Management, DoD, at [email protected], ATTN Ms. Angela James, or call 571-372-7574.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Title; Associated Form; and Omb Number: Election Administration and
Voting Survey (EAVS) Section B Data Standard (ESB Data Standard); OMB
Control Number 0704-FVAP.
Needs and Uses: The President of the United States designated the
Secretary of Defense to administer the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens
Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) As Modified by the Military and Overseas
Voting Empowerment Act, 52 United States Code (U.S.C.) 20301. UOCAVA is
the principal enabling statute that grants authority for the Department
of Defense (DoD) to facilitate absentee voting amongst members of the
Uniformed Services and Merchant Marine, their eligible family members,
and all citizens residing outside the United States who are absent from
the United States. The 1988 Executive Order (E.O.) 12642 names the
Secretary of Defense as the ``Presidential designee'' for administering
UOCAVA. In the Department of Defense Instruction (DoDI) 1000.04,
Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), the Secretary of Defense
delegated UOCAVA-related responsibilities first to the Under Secretary
of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (USD[P&R]), and then, in turn,
to the FVAP Director. The DoDI 1000.04 also updates the policy and
responsibilities for FVAP under E.O. 12642.
The Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act of 2009
enacted key reforms to the absentee voting process for military and
overseas voters. These reforms include the transmission of balloting
materials no later than 45 days prior to each federal election.
Additionally, each state must offer military and overseas voters an
opportunity to receive balloting materials electronically. Sections 52
U.S.C. 20301 (b [6,11]) and 20308 (b [1]) require FVAP to provide a
report to the President and the Congress on program effectiveness and
conduct a statistical analysis on UOCAVA voter participation. These
sections also state that FVAP shall work with the United States
Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and the chief State election
official of each State to develop standards for States to report data
on the number of absentee ballots transmitted and received, and that
FVAP is to store the data collected. In order to evaluate the MOVE
Act's reforms and perform the actions prescribed in 52 U.S.C. 20301 (b
[6,11]) and 20308 (b [1]), FVAP requires transaction-level data that
can associate specific UOCAVA ballot business process transactions with
the ultimate outcome on whether the ballot was received and accepted
for counting in each Federal election.
Affected Public: Individuals or Households.
Annual Burden Hours: 69.
Number of Respondents: 827.
Responses per Respondent: 1.
Annual Responses: 827.
Average Burden per Response: 5 minutes.
Frequency: Semi-Annually.
To help better assist UOCAVA voters, FVAP and the Council of State
Governments worked to refine a transformative new data schema called
the Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS) Section B (ESB)
Data Standard. The ESB Data Standard builds on other data
standardization efforts and allows FVAP to analyze the three key parts
of the voting process: (1) Ballot request; (2) ballot transmission; and
(3) ballot return.
The ESB Data Standard collects transactional data from the absentee
voter's experience in the election process that, when aggregated, align
to the post-election survey questions administered by the EAC's
Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS) data specifically focused on
administration of UOCAVA. To that
[[Page 41968]]
end, under FVAP's guidance, states now have the option of making
transactional-level data on UOCAVA ballots available through the ESB
Data Standard, and the Council of State Governments is assisting with
securing standardized feeds of these transactional data from members of
the Overseas Voting Initiative.
This standard captures data from state databases, a process that
has the advantage of more accurately assessing when ballot transactions
occurred and whether ballot requests and returns were returned. The
EAVS survey, as administered by the EAC, aggregates totals at the state
and jurisdiction levels on ballot receipt and transmission time, but
this blurs the effects experienced by voters into a single statewide
estimate. Further, these data do not isolate how much timing and
transmission type can influence a successful voter transaction in the
process or contrast the impacts of these across two differing
populations, the overseas citizen versus the active duty military
voter. The ESB Data Standard is the first approach of its kind to
analyze administrative data at the transactional level and attempt to
identify drivers for UOCAVA voter success.
FVAP intends to leverage the momentum created from the ESB Data
Standard Analysis to secure greater levels of implementation across
jurisdictions with major populations of UOCAVA voters. Doing so will
drastically reduce the burden on jurisdictions from the EAVS Section B
data collection to only collecting high level metrics as points of
validation for the ESB Data Standard.
Dated: July 8, 2020.
Aaron T. Siegel,
Alternate OSD Federal Register Liaison Officer, Department of Defense.
[FR Doc. 2020-15082 Filed 7-10-20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 5001-06-P