Established 2005 Location Arlington, VA | Chairman Chip Levengood | |
President & CEO Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat Address 4325 Old Glebe RoadArlington, VA 22207 Website overseasvotefoundation.org | ||
The U.S. Vote Foundation (USVF) is a non-partisan non-profit voter assistance organization that helps American citizens overseas and in the military participate in elections. These voters' rights are protected under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). The organization was founded as the Overseas Vote Foundation (OVF) in 2005.
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Mission
USVF was founded to facilitate and increase participation of overseas and military absentee voters by providing public access to Internet-based voter services. The organization's primary objective is to enable all Americans residing around the world, and all military and dependents residing outside their home jurisdiction, to stay active in elections for which they are eligible.
USVF's key activities are:
Voter Services and Site Usage
USVF provides services for voters in all states and territories. Overseas American citizens, U.S. State Department employees, and active duty uniformed service members and their accompanying families, within and outside of the United States can register to vote from abroad and request their ballots using USVF's suite of voter services.
The organization rebranded in 2012 to reflect a shift in focus to include domestic voting issues, renaming itself to the U.S. Vote Foundation program. U.S. Vote Foundation serves domestic U.S. voters, overseas voters, and military personnel with registration, absentee ballot request, and voter information services for all states. U.S. Vote maintained Overseas Vote as an Initiative of U.S. Vote Foundation.
US Vote licenses its data, including contact information for approximately 8,000 local election offices, to partners including the U.S. Postal Service, the National Association of Secretaries of State, Rock the Vote, Vote.org and some corporations (Exxon Mobil, for instance, licenses a custom website to help its overseas workers access absentee ballots).
In November 2015, the organization’s Local/Municipal Election Dates and Deadlines Data Management System and API was selected for the Knight Foundation’s Prototype Fund. It aims to create a nationwide system to collect, maintain and distribute information on upcoming local election dates and deadlines.
US Vote had 2.6 million visits in 2016 on two portals that the group maintains. The organization has seen a 400 percent increase in ballot requests on their system since 2012.
Through USVF's websites, voters have access to registration information, a downloadable Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (Vote-Print-Mail Ballot), state-specific voter information directory (SVID), a local election official directory, and a "voter help-desk." In total, the organization's voter services include the following:
Additional Information
OVF and US Vote also offer the following: