Background

This document presents the results of GAO’s 2007 Survey of State Voting System Programs. The purpose of the survey was to collect nationwide information on requirements, activities, experiences, changes, and views relative to: voting methods and systems used; voting system approval, testing, and problem management; and federal resources and services. The Web-based survey was made available to state-level election officials in all 50 states, four U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia. We obtained responses from 47 states, all 4 territories, and the District of Columbia. The scope of this work did not include contacting election officials from local jurisdictions to verify survey responses.

A more detailed discussion of our scope and methodology and a discussion of selected survey results are contained in our report entitled Elections: States, Territories, and the District Are Taking a Range of Important Steps to Manage their Varied Voting System Environments, GAO-08-874. We conducted our Web-based survey of state-level election officials from December 2007 to April 2008. We conducted our overall study from October 2007 to September 2008. The study, including Web-based survey, was conducted in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Instructions for Viewing this Survey

How to View The Surveys

• Click on the Table of Contents link located in the lower right of this screen. To read to the bottom of the screen, you may need to use your scroll bar on the right side of this screen.
• The first screen in the survey is an introduction and general information that was sent to and viewed by recipients of the survey. There are no survey results to view on this screen. This screen is for information only and you may by-pass it by clicking on Next located at the bottom of the screen in the lower right.
• The survey may have links to allow respondents to bypass inapplicable questions (skip patterns). While these were active links during the data collection period, they have now been disabled.
• When a respondent wrote a narrative response to a question, we sometimes present the frequency of respondents making a comment.

How to View the Responses for Each Question

• To view the responses to each question, click on the question number (Links to survey questions will look like this: 1., etc.).
• After viewing the responses to each question, click on the "x" in the upper right corner of your screen to close that window and return to the questionnaire.

How to Return to a Page That You Previously Visited

• To return to the last screen you viewed, click the Previous button on the lower right corner of the screen.
• Click the Next button to advance to the next screen.

How to Make the Font Larger on Your Screen

• You can make the font larger by changing your browser setting. For example, on Internet Explorer you can change the font size by going to View and selecting Text Size.

Contact Information?

• If you have questions concerning these data, please contact Randolph C. Hite at (202)512-3439.