Early Vote VA: Surge in Overseas Ballots

'UOCAVA' ballot requests, broken out by military and 'overseas citizens,' show a surge in requests from non-military voters compared to 2020. Plus, corrections and improvements to note.

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Early Voting Trends: Surge in Overseas Ballot Requests

Days into Virginia’s 45-day Early Voting stretch, the Department of Elections’ Daily Absentee List (DAL) shows a spike in absentee-ballot requests from the overseas citizens portion of what is known as UOCAVA voters.

For example, Virginia has now reached the same number of “Federal Write-in Absentee” (FWAB) ballots on the third day of early voting as it did in all of 2020.

The DAL data from Dept. of Elections (ELECT) stratefies ballots into three buckets: “Military” ballots, “Overseas Citizens,” and “Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot” (FWAB). The “Temp Federal-only Ballot” (FWAB) category refers to overseas citizens who are only qualified to vote a federal ballot.

So far, we see the following:

—8,779 overseas requests for “Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot” (FWAB).

That’s about the same number as all FWAB ballots requested in 2020.

—15,536 Overseas Citizens requested full ballots as well.

In 2020, some 24,000 Overseas Citizens requested absentee ballots.

—8,087 Military ballot requests are noted so far.

In 2020, Virginia tallied 36,044 Military overseas ballots and some 24,000 as “Overseas Citizens.”

That means the ratio of Military Ballots to regular Overseas Citizens was about 3:2, as EPEC Team Senior Analyst Rick Naigle notes.

At this stage, 3 days into early voting, the ratio of Military ballots to Overseas Citizen categories in the UOCAVA count is about 1:1, largely because of the Temporary Federal (FWAB) category.

See chart below:

Chart by Rick Naigle, EPEC Senior Analyst, Board of Directors

UOCAVA Background:

Enacted by Congress in 1986, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) enables citizens who are serving overseas in the military and family members to vote absentee in federal elections.

(See EAC’s website for more background.)

Many states that have expanded no-excuse federal absentee balloting now include state and local elections in their UOCAVA statues.

Virginia’s Dept. of Elections (ELECT) also allows citizens who are eligible under UOCAVA, and who are not currently registered in Virginia, to “simultaneously register to vote and request an Absentee Ballot by submitting a Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) by mail, e-mail or fax.”

See more about Virginia’s UOCAVA here.

See more about military overseas voting here.

Election officials are duty-bound to check the eligibility of overseas citizens who are registered to vote back in the states, including the Commonwealth of Virginia. Others who register for the first time have to fill out a different form with full Social Security Number, for example.

EPEC Team has spent months researching UOCAVA data and will have more to report about these trends in our expanded publishing schedule.

For now, we are tracking DAL stats and bench-marking them against the 2020. ~~

EPEC Team Adjusts Some Calculations

In our last newsletter, EPEC Team reported about Fairfax County Electoral Board’s vote at their Sept. 16 meeting to send a list of noncitizens who were removed from Virginia’s voter rolls by the Dept. of Elections (ELECT) to the Commonwealth Attorney and Attorney General of Virginia for investigation.

In Virginia, it is a class 6 felony for anyone who is ineligible to vote to register and cast a ballot.

Fairfax Electoral Board’s “Policy for Referring Individuals who were Removed from the Voter Rolls” says:

“The General Registrar shall refer all individuals who were removed from the voter rolls pursuant to Va. Code § 24.2-427(C), after being identified by ELECT as non-citizens, to the Commonwealth’s Attorney and the Attorney General to determine if they have violated Virginia elections law.”

The board’s new policy referenced data from ELECT showing that “between January 2022 and July 2024, 6,303 individuals in Virginia had their voter registrations cancelled based on this information. This includes 985 individuals who were removed in Fairfax County” in the two-year period.

In 2023 alone, noncitizens removed from voter rolls appear to have cast 175 ballots in Fairfax County before they were removed, according to ELECT’s data and EPEC’s research.

EPEC Team’s volunteer CTO, Jon Lareau, recently published updated analysis and research into recent lists of declared noncitizens who appear to have a voting history, including in Fairfax County.

Due to the ELECT’s sudden policy change in late August to hide DOB [full date of birth] data from voter lists, many voter-participation groups had to scramble to update their record-keeping systems. It impacted some of EPEC’s systems, too.

As a result, Lareau writes, VHL [Voter History List] entries that should have been removed as duplicate entries in our combined VHL history also needed to be updated.

Using the data provided by the VA Department of Elections (ELECT), we have identified at least 2,299 unique registrations that were identified as “Declared Non-Citizen” and removed by ELECT from the voter rolls since May of 2023.

Of those 2,299 there were 438 (revised from 453) that also had corresponding records of recent ballots cast at some point in the official Voter History record that we could observe. There were 1,034 (revised from 1,117) associated ballots cast identified since Feb of 2019.

Lareau adds of the updated programming changes:

Statewide, an additional 164 non-citizen registrations had at least one (1) vote cast as per Daily Absentee List (DAL) data from ELECT, with a total of 204 ballots identified, however only two of those DAL identified voters and two ballots were not already identified in the VHL. 

The total number of identified non-citizen ballots cast is therefore 1,036 (revised from 1,321) by 440 (revised from 617) registrants when combining unique VHL and DAL identifications.

That includes about 175 ballots associated with Fairfax County that appear to have been cast by noncitizens before they were removed by ELECT.

See his updated analysis here:

Non-citizen registrations with previous voting history (updated Sept. 2024)

Whether in our calculations, spelling, attribution, even a split infinitive — EPEC Team is committed to accuracy, and correcting quickly. ~~

Links, Dates and Updates:

• Have You Checked Your Registration? Virginia citizens can do so here.

Election participation groups are urging citizens to take advantage of the early days to cast a ballot as voter participation groups gear up their Get Out The Vote activities.

DAL data show that Virginians tend to trickle in for Early Voting during the first few weeks of the seven-week stretch. Maybe this year will be different.

Find your Virginia Voting Location here. ~~

• Notable Event This week: EAC Meeting with Federal ‘Partners’

Election Integrity Groups are flagging an event this week (Thurs., Sept. 26 from 1 PM- 4 PM) by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC.gov) called:

Working Together: Supporting the 2024 Elections through Federal Partnerships

“During this event, representatives from key federal agencies will discuss the ways they are working together to support local and state election officials as they prepare for the 2024 elections.”

Attendance is available in person or via streaming on the EAC's YouTube channel. But attendees in person are asked to register.

See more here: PUBLIC REGISTRATION LINK

Attendees include representatives from:

• Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)

• Department of Justice (DOJ) 

• Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 

• Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) 

• Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) 

• United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) 

EPEC Team will be covering in our expanded publishing schedule during early voting. Until next update, that’s a wrap. #