Administering Accessible Vote by Mail Systems: Challenges and Innovations in Election Offices

The goal of this research was to learn about challenges election officials experience, innovations and workarounds that help them administer AVBM effectively, and lessons learned that they would pass on to other elections offices.

For some election officials, AVBM extends the features of UOCAVA voting to voters with disabilities. They emphasize the ability to deliver a ballot electronically and for voters to use their own technology to mark and print the ballot for return, rather than going to a polling place to use a ballot marking device or other accessible technology.

For both voters with disabilities and UOCAVA voters, technology reduces barriers to voting. For overseas voters, international mail logistics create a “last mile” barrier. For voters with disabilities that make using paper difficult, the final tasks of printing, reviewing, and packing the ballot for return create a similar last-mile barrier.

For those voters, the ability to complete everything digitally using their own assistive technology is essential for independent voting. When they require assistance for final steps like printing the ballot, physically signing the envelope, and packaging for return, the voting experience is no longer independent and private.very long, option to only include the most important points here, and close by directing readers to the full report above.

How to address the challenges to providing AVBM 

Technical projects to improve AVBM administration

• Accelerate the development of a Common Data Format for ballot style data interchange
• Investigate methods for directly counting AVBM ballots without replication
• Collect input from jurisdictions offering electronic ballot return to identify risks and benefits

Best practices to collect and share:

• Definitions for “print disability” and eligibility requirements
• Procedures for counting and replicating AVBM ballots by ballot style
• How voters access their AVBM ballot and communicate with elections offices
• Voter experience research on successes, barriers, and satisfaction

Continued research toward AVBM guidelines and standards:

• Review VVSG requirements for applicability to AVBM interfaces
• Research secure, accessible authentication methods that preserve ballot secrecy
• Review end-to-end verifiable voting protocols for AVBM integrity

As the use of AVBM widens, it is important to ensure that administrative burdens do not end up restricting access to an independent and private vote-by-mail experience for everyone, as an unintended consequence.

This research was conducted by Lynn Baumeister, Whitney Quesenbery and Sharon J. Laskowski (NIST).

This report reviews current elections offices’ practices in administering accessible vote by mail and considers their innovations and current challenges.

In 2022, we held conversations with three commercial vendors that provide AVBM systems: Enhanced Voting, DemocracyLive, and Five Cedars. Our goal was to understand the general workflow that AVBM requires and get a sense of how different (or similar) the products available to election officials are.

We then spoke with officials from election offices that provide AVBM. They gave us a good view of the range of administration experience. In some states where the state supplies the AVBM system, we were able to talk to officials from both state and local offices. These conversations included administrators from state (6), county (8), and municipal (1) offices in California, Colorado, Maryland, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. They used the most common AVBM systems in several different administrative configurations.

The information in this report is a compilation of anecdotal information gathered through unstructured conversations with election officials about their experiences. The goal of these conversations was to learn about challenges election officials experience, innovations and workarounds that help them administer AVBM effectively, and lessons learned they would pass on to other elections offices.