Proposed Collection; Comment Request

AGENCY:

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (OUSD (P&R)), Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), DoD.

ACTION:

Information collection notice.

SUMMARY:

In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness announces a proposed public information collection and seeks public comment on the provisions thereof. Comments are invited on: Whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether the information shall have practical utility; the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the proposed information collection; ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and ways to minimize the burden of the information collection on respondents, including through the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology.

DATES:

Consideration will be given to all comments received by January 22, 2019.

ADDRESSES:

You may submit comments, identified by docket number and title, by any of the following methods:

Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.

Mail: Department of Defense, Office of the Chief Management Officer, Directorate for Oversight and Compliance, 4800 Mark Center Drive, Mailbox #24, Suite 08D09, Alexandria, VA 22350-1700.

Instructions: All submissions received must include the agency name, docket number and title for this Federal Register document. The general policy for comments and other submissions from members of the public is to make these submissions available for public viewing on the internet at http://www.regulations.gov as they are received without change, including any personal identifiers or contact information.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

To request more information on this proposed information collection or to obtain a copy of the proposal and associated collection instruments, please write to the Federal Voting Assistance Program, ATTN: Sarah Gooch, 4800 Mark Center Drive, Mailbox 10, Alexandria, Virginia 22350-5000 or call 703-588-1584.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Title; Associated Form; and OMB Number: Federal Post Card Application (FPCA), Standard Form 76 (SF-76); OMB Control Number 0704-0503.

Needs and Uses: The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), 52 U.S.C. 203, requires the Presidential designee (Secretary of Defense) to prescribe official forms, containing an absentee voter registration application, an absentee ballot request application and a backup ballot for use by the States to permit absent uniformed services voters and overseas voters to participate in general, special, primary and runoff elections for Federal office. The authority for the States to collect personal information comes from UOCAVA. The burden for collecting this information resides in the States. The Federal government neither collects nor retains any personal information associated with these forms.

The collected information will be used by election officials to process uniformed service members, spouses and overseas citizens who submit their information to register to vote, receive an absentee ballot or cast a write-in ballot. The collected information will be retained by election officials to provide election materials, including absentee ballots, to the uniformed services, their eligible family members and overseas voters during the form's eligibility period provided by State law. No information from the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) is collected or retained by the Federal government.

Affected Public: Individuals or Households.

Annual Burden Hours: 300,000.

Number of Respondents: 1,200,000.

Responses per Respondent: 1.

Annual Responses: 1,200,000.

Average Burden per Response: 15 minutes.

Frequency: On occasion.

The applicant is required to update and resubmit the information annually, whenever they change their mailing address or as otherwise required by State law. If the information is not submitted annually or whenever they change their mailing address, the applicant may not receive ballots for elections for Federal office in that calendar year.