Voting Assistance Officer Best Practices

Collecting and Sharing Best Practices and Lessons Learned

The Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) Best Practices Program supports developing, collecting, sharing and implementing of Voting Assistance Officer’s (VAOs) best practices and lessons learned across the Services worldwide. The objective of the program is to enhance lines of communication among VAOs at all levels to facilitate global sharing of best practices and lessons learned while enabling tailored local best practices based on organizational voting assistance program and lessons learned from successes and mistakes.

As you provide absentee voting assistance, look at your voting assistance program, processes and procedures. You will find that there are some things you are doing very well with excellent results that others could use to improve awareness and participation among the UOCAVA citizens they assist.

The Best Practices Report from each of the Services are displayed on the FVAP website. Lessons learned are disseminated through the Voting Information News newsletter.

Guidance For Submitting Best Practices and Lessons Learned

VAO sources of information used to generate best practices and lessons learned may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Personal experiences as a VAO, absentee voting official


• Assessments, audits, and appraisals


• Training evaluations


• Operational Readiness Reviews


• Critiques, analyses, and investigations


• Process improvement initiatives


• VAO Training


• Voting activities such as Registration drives

A best practice or lesson learned should contain five basic elements:

• A clear statement of the practice or lesson


• A background summary of how the practice was developed or the lesson was learned


• Benefits of using the practice or lesson and suggestion how the practice or lesson may be used in the future


• Contact information for additional detail


• Key entry information to aid review

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Uniformed Services Installation and U.S. embassies and consulates’ Voting Assistance Officers (VAOs) should submit best practices and lessons learned through e-mail to their Service Voting Action Officer (SVAO).

Overseas citizen organization VAOs and individuals may submit their best practices directly to FVAP through the FVAP e-mail, vote@fvap.ncr.gov (subject should be "Best Practices").

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Provide the following when submitting a Best Practice or Lessons Learned

Title: Title of the lesson learned.

Date: Date the lesson learned submitted.

Lessons Learned Statement: Statement that summarizes the best practice or lesson(s) that was learned from the activity.

Discussion of Activities: Brief description of the facts which resulted in the initiation of the best practice or lesson learned.

Recommended Actions: A brief description of management-approved actions which were taken, or will be taken, in association with the lesson learned.

FVAP Mission and Core Function(s): this best practice or lesson applies to. Use tab titles on Website to identify core functions. See www.fvap.gov front page.

Originator: Name of the originating organization (for FVAP internal use only).

Contact: Name and phone number of individual to contact for additional information (for FVAP internal use only).

Name of Reviewing Official: Name of Reviewing Official who determined that the lesson learned does not contain classified or sensitive information and is acceptable for publishing on the World Wide Web.

References: References such as UOCAVA, DoD Directive 1000.4, The Help America Vote Act (HAVA), The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), etc.

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