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EAVS FAQs

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The Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS) provides information related to federal election administration, registration, and voting.

The survey includes national, state, and county-level data on:

  • Voter Registration 
  • Uniformed and Overseas Voters 
  • Early, Mail, and Provisional Voting
  • Voter Participation
  • Voting Equipment Usage 
  • Poll Workers, Polling Places, and Precincts

The Election Administration and Voting Survey has included a Policy Survey section since 2008 (the Policy Survey was previously known as the Statutory Overview from 2008-2016, the name changed to the Policy Survey in 2018). In this section, states are asked a series of questions about their state election laws, definitions, and procedures. This information helps the EAC and its stakeholders understand the quantitative data from the EAVS while also providing a clearer picture of the local legal landscape governing U.S. elections.

The EAVS is sent to election officials in 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five territories – Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

The EAC released its first survey in 2004 under authority granted to the commission by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002.

HAVA includes several provisions that both mandate and authorize EAVS.

The National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993 required the Federal Election Commission (and subsequently, the EAC) to report to Congress by June 30 of the year following a Federal election on the impact of the Act on the administration of elections and to include recommendations for improvements in procedures, forms, and other matters affected by the Act.

Section 703 of HAVA mandates that for each regularly scheduled general election for a Federal office, the EAC shall collect comprehensive data from the states on all the ballots sent to military and overseas voters and received back by election administrators. The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) of 1986 protects the voting rights of members of the uniformed services and U.S. citizens residing outside of the country.

In addition, Section 202 of HAVA mandates the EAC to serve as a national clearinghouse and resource for the compilation of information and review of procedures with respect to the administration of Federal elections. Section 202(3) authorizes the EAC to conduct studies and carry out other duties and activities to promote the effective administration of Federal elections.

The information collection associated with the EAVS is conducted every two years following a federal election.

Every two years, the EAC administers the survey to 56 states and territories, requesting election administration-related data at the county-level or county-level equivalent. Most states rely at least to some degree on centralized voter registration databases and voter history databases, which allow state election officials to respond to the survey at the local level for each question. Other states rely on cooperation from county election offices to complete the survey.

The EAVS report provides the state-reported figures for U.S. voter participation and registration, as well as the estimated citizen voting age population as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau.

EAC makes all of its data publicly available for interested parties to examine and analyze. The Election Administration and Voting Survey data can be found on the EAC website. For questions about a specific state’s data, please review the data and contact the state’s election office for more information.

Please call the EAC at 1-866-747-1471/ 202- 451-2031 or send an email to [email protected].

Each row in the EAVS dataset covers the data of a specific county or locality.

One approach is to use our 2016 EAVS data which can be found here: /research-and-data/datasets-codebooks-and-surveys/. Specifically registration data is in Section A, and registered voter numbers for the 2016 election cycle can be found in question A1. However the Iowa Secretary of State updates registration totals monthly. They just released their most recent registration report, dated Oct. 2, 2017: https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/pdf/VRStatsArchive/2017/CoOct17.pdf. Emmet's County information is listed there.    We don't have total population in our dataset. The report also does not have county-level data of voting age citizens. That data can be found at the US Census website. This is the most recent data from the Census for county-level estimates and should be noted doesn't match the time frame of our registration data. Our registration data is numbers reported from the states from after the 2014 election up to the November 2016 election. The Census data is estimates taken from a 5-year survey average from 2011 - 2015.