SUPPORTING STATEMENT - PART A
Overseas Citizen Population Survey– OMB Control Number 0704-0539
Summary of Proposed Changes from OCPS 2022
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1. Need for the Information Collection
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 USC 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. UOCAVA requires a statistical assessment on the voter registration and participation rates for members of the Uniformed Services as well as overseas civilians. The 1988 Executive Order 12642 names the Secretary of Defense as the “Presidential designee” for administering UOCAVA. In the Department of Defense Instruction 1000.04, Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), the Secretary of Defense delegated UOCAVA-related responsibilities first to the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, and then, in turn, to the Director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program. The DoD Instruction 1000.04 also updates the policy and responsibilities for FVAP under Executive Order 12642.
The primary objective of the Overseas Citizen Population Survey (OCPS), conducted on behalf of FVAP, is to refine FVAP’s methodology for estimating the number of overseas U.S. civilians who are eligible to vote and who have registered and participated in the past, and using these estimates to address the question of whether the registration and voting propensity of the overseas civilian population differs from that of a comparable domestic or military populations. Subsequent to each general election year, FVAP must report voter registration and participation rates for Uniformed Services voters and overseas citizens to Congress. Previous attempts to collect information on the overseas citizen population to identify and measure its voter registration and participation rates in Federal elections suffered from significant bias; this effort is focused on refining a prototype method to report voter registration and participation rates from a more well-defined subgroup of overseas civilians. Conducting this research will help FVAP meet its federal and congressional mandates in terms of reporting annually on its activities and on overall voter registration and participation rates after each federal general election. The data obtained through this study is also intended to provide insights into existing barriers to UOCAVA voting and recommendations for addressing these challenges.
To obtain the necessary information, the Overseas Citizen Population Survey project will use data collected from a sample of registered overseas civilian voters in conjunction with previous country level estimates developed by FVAP research and establish a research method to assist FVAP in reporting voter registration and participation rates for the 2024 election.
2.Use of the Information
The sponsor of this research is FVAP. The primary user of the data/results will be FVAP. Additional potential users of the results could include the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), other DoD senior staff and administrators, and the Office of People Analytics (OPA). FVAP issued a task order (47QFPA24F0010) for research and analysis services to, among other things, examine the demographic profile of registered overseas civilian voters, quantify the population of these voters by country, and calculate a voter registration and participation rate for the population using records from state and local election officials. To draw useful comparisons between eligible U.S. overseas citizens and similar domestic citizen voting age population (CVAP) or active-duty military (ADM) members, it is necessary to: (1) obtain estimates of the registration and voting rates of the overseas citizen population; (2) identify the demographic composition of the larger overseas citizen population; and (3) compare voting among overseas citizens to domestic civilians or ADM with similar characteristics. Demographic and economic information, such as age, relevant to voting behavior for domestic civilians is available from the Voting and Registration Supplement of the Current Population Survey administered by the U.S. census, and the FVAP Post-Election Voting Survey of the Active-Duty Military provides similar data for the ADM population. However, much less data on these characteristics is available on the overseas citizen population. This project will use modeling methods to estimate some of these key demographic variables (e.g., gender, age) in the overseas U.S. civilian population. This will allow for an initial comparison of the voting behavior of eligible voters in the overseas citizen population with domestic CVAP and ADM populations who share similar characteristics. It is expected that these estimates, although critical in describing eligible voters, are likely to be associated with considerable uncertainty given the limited data available from which to create these estimates. Therefore, to supplement this modeling work, FVAP is refining a prototype research method for creating comparisons of voting rates across a subpopulation of critical interest. Specifically, this prototype will include a survey of the overseas U.S. citizen registered voter population who requested a ballot in 2024, focused on voting-relevant characteristics such as educational attainment, income, and mobility. This data will allow FVAP to compare with greater certainty the voting behaviors of overseas registered U.S. citizens to those of the registered CVAP and ADM population who share similar characteristics.
Respondents are drawn from the population of individuals who have a record of having requested an absentee ballot as well as an address in their absentee ballot request or registration record that indicates they live outside the United States. Sampled individuals are mailed or emailed an invitation to take the survey which contains a URL for the online survey instrument. Respondents complete and return this survey electronically.
Conducting such a survey of registered absentee voter citizens living overseas at the time of the 2024 General Election will allow for the collection of specific, accurate information on the demographic variables (such as age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, and mobility) necessary to make the comparisons between the overseas, domestic, and ADM populations that are so important to FVAP’s mission. Obtaining demographic variables through a survey, rather than through an estimation plan, also provides the added value of providing an opportunity to collect additional data on voting related behaviors that might help address complex and/or unexpected findings within and across countries. The survey will include questions grouped into five main categories:
Where respondents are located
Respondents’ recent voting history
Respondents’ use of voting assistance resources
Respondents’ engagement in 2024 and their social connections
Demographic questions
The survey instrument has been designed to parallel FVAP’s Post-Election Voting Survey of the Active-Duty Military, as well as the Current Population Survey, facilitating FVAP’s ability to compare the registration and voting behavior of the overseas citizen population, domestic CVAP, and ADM. The survey will be processed by a team of trained contractor operations staff who regularly handle large scale surveys. During the fielding period, respondent data will be stored on secure proprietary software, Voxco, until the fielding period ends. The operations staff will then review the final data, clean open-end data to suppress any personally identifiable information (PII), and process the final dataset.
3. Use of Information Technology
The OCPS will be conducted using a web-only survey and “push-to-web” communications methodology, to maximize the possible use of technology while not excluding respondents without email addresses. 100% of the responses will be collected electronically. During the fielding period, respondent data will be stored on secure proprietary software, Voxco, until the fielding period ends. During fielding, all sample members will have access to an email survey help desk, which will answer any potential survey issues and to log any unsubscribes.
4. Non-duplication
The information obtained through this collection is unique and is not already available for use or adaptation from another cleared source.
5. Burden on Small Businesses
This information collection does not impose a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small businesses or entities.
6. Less Frequent Collection
The proposed survey is a biennial activity to refine a research prototype method to report voter registration and participation rates of overseas civilians for the 2024 General Election. Conducting this research is necessary to help FVAP meet its federal and congressional mandates in terms of reporting annually on its activities and on overall voter registration and participation rates after each general election. The insights gained from this research will ultimately be used by FVAP’s work to overcome voting obstacles and improve voting success rates among non-military UOCAVA voters by adjusting its internal programs and policies. Risks involved with a denial or limitation of this information collection process include not only impeding FVAP’s ability to fulfill these mandates to report to Congress, but also impacting FVAP’s ability to use data on the locations and voting activities of overseas civilians to identify barriers to voting unique to this population.
7. Paperwork Reduction Act Guidelines
This collection of information does not require collection to be conducted in a manner inconsistent with the guidelines delineated in 5 CFR 1320.5(d)(2).
8. Consultation and Public Comments
Part A: PUBLIC NOTICE
A 60-Day Federal Register Notice (FRN) for the collection published on Tuesday, July 23, 2024. The 60-Day FRN citation is 89 FRN 59723.
No comments were received during the 60-Day Comment Period.
A 30-Day Federal Register Notice for the collection published on Monday, November 12, 2024. The 30-Day FRN citation is 89 FR 101572.
Part B: CONSULTATION
This is a biennial information collection. Consultations occurred based on the 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022 OCPS, past survey data from FVAP to scope this current effort, and a review of external literature related to survey methodology and UOCAVA voting and application of best practices in the preparation and conduct of this information collection.
The 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022 surveys produced information about overseas citizen voters, the overall turnout rate among absentee ballot requesters, and the challenges and barriers they faced. The 2024 survey will repeat the sampling methodology used in 2022 and will use a modified version of the survey instrument from the 2022 survey. This survey changed the order of some of the items to help with the flow of the overall survey and cover similar topics in the same section of the survey, thus reducing the burden on the respondent by reducing the number of changes in topics to be recalled. It also added five follow-up items to further understand the reasons for voters to use determined methods to request and return their ballots, and to learn more about the type of information overseas voters searched for ahead of the 2024 election. These follow-up questions will provide a clearer understanding of what information was most useful for overseas voters and their preferred methods to complete the voting process.
9. Gifts or Payment
No payments or gifts are being offered to respondents as an incentive to participate in the collection.
10. Confidentiality
A Privacy Act Statement is not required for this collection because we are not requesting individuals to furnish personal information for a system of records.
A System of Record Notice (SORN) is not required for this collection because records are not retrievable by PII.
A Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) is not required for this collection because PII is not being collected electronically.
Records Retention and Disposition Schedule: Survey records and data created for and associated with this study will be cut off when superseded or obsolete; they will be destroyed three years after cutoff (102-07).
11. Sensitive Questions
No questions considered sensitive are being asked in this collection.
12. Respondent Burden and its Labor Costs
Part A: ESTIMATION OF RESPONDENT BURDEN
Collection Instrument(s)
Overseas Citizen Population Survey
Number of Respondents: 18,000
Number of Responses Per Respondent: 1
Number of Total Annual Responses: 18,000
Response Time 15 minutes
Respondent Burden Hours 4,500 hours
Total Submission Burden (Summation or average based on collection)
Total Number of Respondents: 18,000
Total Number of Annual Responses: 18,000
Total Respondent Burden Hours: 4,500 hours
Part B: LABOR COST OF RESPONDENT BURDEN
Collection Instrument(s)
Overseas Citizen Population Survey
Number of Total Annual Responses: 18,000
Response Time: 15 minutes
Respondent Hourly Wage: $34.27
Labor Burden per Response: $8.57
Total Labor Burden: $154,215
Overall Labor Burden
Total Number of Annual Responses: 18,000
Total Labor Burden: $154,215
The Respondent hourly wage was determined by using the average December 2023 hourly wage from Bureau of Labor Statistics updated on January 11, 2024, available at: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/realer_01112024.htm
13.Respondent Costs Other Than Burden Hour Costs
There are no annualized costs to respondents other than the labor burden costs addressed in Section 12 of this document to complete this collection.
14. Cost to the Federal Government
Part A: LABOR COST TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
Collection Instrument(s)
Overseas Citizen Population Survey – Supervisor
a. Number of Total Annual Responses: 18,000
b. Processing Time per Response: 0.004722 hours
c. Hourly Wage of Worker(s) Processing Responses: $64.59
d. Cost to Process Each Response: $0.30
e. Total Cost to Process Responses: $5,489.89
Overseas Citizen Population Survey - Researcher
a. Number of Total Annual Responses: 18,000
b. Processing Time per Response: 0.001388 hours
c. Hourly Wage of Worker(s) Processing Responses: $34.51
d. Cost to Process Each Response: $0.05
e. Total Cost to Process Responses: $862.20
Overall Labor Burden to the Federal Government
Total Number of Annual Responses: 18,000
Total Labor Burden: $6,352.09
Part B: OPERATIONAL AND MAINTENANCE COSTS
Cost Categories
Equipment: $0
Printing: $82,217.97
Postage: $246,653.90
Software Purchases: $0
Licensing Costs (voter files for frame collection): $281,800
Other (contractor labor): $463,671.64
Total Operational and Maintenance Cost: $1,074,343.51
Part C: TOTAL COST TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
Total Labor Cost to the Federal Government: $6,352.09
Total Operational and Maintenance Costs: $1,074,343.51
Total Cost to the Federal Government: $1,080,695.60
15. Reasons for Change in Burden
There has been an increase in burden since the previous approval due to an increase in respondent wage.
16. Publication of Results
The duration of the collection period is from March 17, 2025, through June 23, 2025. The results of this survey are estimated to be published in September 2025, in FVAP’s 2024 Report to Congress, and on its website.
17. Non-Display of OMB Expiration Date
We are not seeking approval to omit the display of the expiration date of the OMB approval on the collection instrument.
18. Exceptions to “Certification for Paperwork Reduction Submissions”
We are not requesting any exemptions to the provisions stated in 5 CFR 1320.9.
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Kaitlin Chiarelli |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2024-12-23 |