EASE 2.0 Grants

This publication constitutes a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) as contemplated in Department of Defense Grants and Agreements regulations (DoDGARS) 22.315, which allows the Defense Human Resources Activity (DHRA) – Procurement Support Office (PSO), in support of the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) to enter into multiple competitively awarded, grant awards with State, Territorial and/or Local governmental entities. FVAP strives to achieve this mission through advocacy with and assistance to election officials and voters covered under UOCAVA. FVAP’s strategic goals, lines of operation, and policies depend on the resulting data from the grant program to reflect the true nature of the entire voting experience for uniformed and overseas voters. FVAP strives to be a data-driven organization. We design and redesign our program based upon what we learn from our surveys and other data. For example, FVAP initially placed a greater focus on promoting voter registration among military and overseas voters. Following the 2008 election, the survey data showed the issue for military and overseas voters was not access to voter registration, but the time required to transmit ballots to and from various locations throughout the world. Based on this data, the agency changed its focus toward addressing ballot delivery and return issues, resulting in the development of FVAP-hosted online assistants as well as the 2010 Electronic Voting Support Wizard project and the 2011 Electronic Absentee System for Elections (EASE) grant program (H98210-BAA-11-0001). The 2011 EASE grant program was created to better understand the different challenges that military and overseas voters face at every step of the voting process. The EASE grant program funded 35 programs that included online ballot delivery, online voter registration, automated ballot duplication, online ballot requests and online ballot tracking. With the research that we receive from this program, FVAP will be able to focus efforts on the necessary portion of the voting process to ensure that military and overseas voters are more successful. As we move forward to the next grant program, FVAP will narrow the scope of its research and address two of the most critical aspects of the electoral process for military and overseas voters: ballot transit time and voter confusion. The Effective Absentee System for Elections 2 grant program will focus in two specific areas: the development of online ballot delivery tools and the establishment of single points of contact (single POC) in State election offices. It is vital that we have a significant statistical sample in order to validate the effectiveness of these programs. In order for this to occur, we want to focus on statewide solutions in areas that have a great number of voters covered by UOCAVA.