Overseas Vote Foundation’s State Hosted Systems Program

Continuing to break new ground and prepare the way for greater overseas voter participation in the U.S. electoral process, Overseas Vote Foundation (”OVF”) announced the launch of its State Hosted Systems Program (”SHS”). Under this program, Alabama, Minnesota, and Ohio have launched customized, state-of-the-art, web-based, interactive voter registration services. The sites were developed by OVF, with the support of the JEHT Foundation, which granted both development support for OVF’s SHS Program and support to reduce costs for states to adopt the SHS program in 2008.

The SHS program enables states to provide these new voter registration services at a fraction of the cost of the manual and error-filled process used in previous election cycles. It is a true, “win-win” as it saves taxpayer money while providing Americans abroad with improved access to voting services.

For those of you not yet aware of OVF, it exists to assist uniformed and overseas American citizens in registering to vote. The Pew Charitable Trusts has provided grant support to OVF to develop its voter services.