Frequently Asked Questions

The Center for U.S. Voters Abroad Turnout Project (“CUVA Turnout Project”) is a U.S.-based nonpartisan nonprofit initiative that helps American citizens living or serving overseas register to vote and request their absentee ballots. CUVA Turnout Project is a joint project of two separate but aligned nonprofits: the Center for U.S. Voters Abroad Foundation, a 501(c)(3) registered charity, and the Center for U.S. Voters Abroad, a 501(c)(4) registered nonprofit.

Our free, secure online tool at USVotersAbroad.org walks overseas citizens through the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA), the federal form used to register and request a ballot from abroad.

Yes. CUVA Turnout Project operates as a registered nonprofit structure, co-administered by a 501(c)(3) charity and a 501(c)(4) nonprofit. CUVA Turnout Project has a named staff — including an Executive Director, Technical Director, Partnerships Manager, and Election Operations Manager — and works with established partner organizations such as Civic Alliance and National Voter Registration Day. The organization publishes its Terms of Use and Privacy Policy publicly, and both documents are dated and version-controlled.

Yes. CUVA Turnout Project’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy state explicitly that it is “a nonpartisan voter registration and overseas ballot request service available to all eligible United States citizens and military voters,” and that it “will not withhold or refuse to provide our services to anyone on the basis of support for or opposition to particular candidates, or on the basis of party affiliation.” CUVA Turnout Project does not endorse candidates or political parties. Our online tool only asks about party affiliation because the federal form that the tool helps voters complete, called the FPCA, includes a question on party affiliation. Many states hold partisan primary elections and require a party affiliation in order to provide the correct primary ballot to a voter.

No. CUVA Turnout Project is an independent nonprofit and is not a government agency. The Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), a program of the U.S. Department of Defense, is the official federal source for overseas and military voting information and maintains its own site at fvap.gov. CUVA Turnout Project’s tool is a nonprofit resource designed to make the same FPCA process easier to complete, and CUVA Turnout Project links to FVAP as an authoritative reference.

CUVA Turnout Project is supported by individual donors, foundations, and nonprofit grants to the 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) organizations that co-administer the project — not by political parties or candidate committees. Both organizations file regular funding disclosure forms with the IRS, namely the annual Form 990. Our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy both affirm our nonpartisan commitment to serve all eligible overseas and military voters.

The Federal Post Card Application (FPCA), also known as Standard Form 76, is a federal form that functions as both a voter registration application and an absentee ballot request for U.S. citizens abroad and military voters, under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). Almost all U.S. citizens 18 years and older who are living outside the country are eligible to use it, regardless of how long they’ve lived abroad. Because voter rolls are periodically purged and address information can change, election officials generally recommend submitting a new FPCA every year.

The process has three steps: complete a short online form with your personal and address information (roughly 5–7 minutes), receive your completed FPCA as a ready-to-send document by email, and send it to your local election official. Many voters can submit their form electronically, and the tool will help you every step of the way. For voters who need to mail a paper copy of their form, the tool will provide a mailing address for their election official based on their voting address. This removes the step of manually researching which local election office to contact — a common point of confusion for overseas voters.

Yes, there is no charge to use our FPCA tool housed at USVotersAbroad.org. It is funded by donor contributions rather than by user fees, and it does not solicit payment information at any point in the process.

Several free resources exist to help with overseas voter registration, including the federal government’s own tools. CUVA Turnout Project’s tool is built specifically around the FPCA form and the overseas registration process, rather than serving as a general-purpose voter tool, and it is designed to auto-generate a completed, ready-to-submit FPCA document rather than requiring you to fill out and mail a blank form yourself. It also identifies the correct local election official for your specific voting address and lets you send the completed form directly, rather than leaving that research step to the user.

Support is available through an AI-powered assistant on the site as well as trained staff and volunteers. Our staff and volunteer teams have had tens of thousands of conversations with voters, helping them with every step of the process. We have also trained a state-of-the-art AI assistant (Intercom’s Fin AI) on all of these conversations, and it can now answer the majority of voter questions with high accuracy. For any complex questions, our staff and volunteers are standing by to help answer questions via chat or email. You can reach us directly at info@usvotersabroad.org with questions.

CUVA Turnout Project’s Privacy Policy states that the organization uses strong, industry-standard security measures designed to protect personal information from unauthorized access, alteration, or misuse, and that data submitted through the tool is used to prepare and submit voter registration and ballot request materials. The policy also gives users specific rights depending on jurisdiction, including rights to access, correct, or request deletion of their data. This includes careful compliance with privacy laws including the European Union’s GDPR. Our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use are publicly available for users to review.