With the midterm elections now behind us, the EAC has begun implementing the 2018 Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS). The EAVS is the agency’s biennial survey that collects the most comprehensive nationwide data on election administration from nearly 6,500 local election jurisdictions across all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.
Pollsters and journalists are already off to the races writing the first draft of history on the 2018 midterms. The EAVS allows us to tell the official election administration side of the story. From record turnout levels to shifts in voting methods, and changes in voting technology, we should have some really interesting things to say about how the 2018 elections were run and the changing landscape of U.S. elections.
Today we are excited to launch the data collection period for the 2018 EAVS and share the data collection templates with respondents. Along with the new templates, the EAC and its implementing partner, Fors Marsh Group, are taking a number of steps to make the survey easier to complete, strengthen data quality and completeness, and improve accessibility of the data. Some of these efforts include new resources that were also released today, discussed below.
- Webinar: Overview of the 2018 EAVS – Moderated by EAC Vice Chair Christy McCormick, webinar panelists discuss a number of topics helpful for respondents, including what’s new for the 2018 survey, the EAVS data collection timeline, resources available to respondents, and helpful hints for completing the survey.
- A series of six “bootcamp” videos, which provide detailed section-by-section and question-by-question guidance for completing the survey. These include:
- Section A, related to voter registration data;
- Section B, related to military and overseas voting data;
- Section C, related to domestic civilian by-mail voting data;
- Section D, related to polling place and poll worker data;
- Section E, related to provisional ballot data; and
- Section F, related to voter participation and election technology data.
While these resources primarily seek to help respondents complete the 2018 EAVS, we also hope that they can provide to other interested stakeholders insights into the data collected by the survey and the process we use to collect it. EAVS respondents can find the data collection templates, instructions, and additional resources on the 2018 EAVS Portal.
Look for more information about the 2018 EAVS in the New Year, as we plan to provide additional updates on the EAVS and related news!