Privacy & Security Policy

U.S. Vote Foundation, our Overseas Vote and our US.VOTE initiatives, and together referred to as “US Vote”, share a strong commitment to voter privacy and data security. We believe that the users of our voter services seek out these services for the singular purpose of being able to cast their ballots as informed voters and for no other purpose. Therefore our policies and actions regarding voter data are strictly limited.

This privacy policy is applicable to the U.S. Vote Foundation website,  www.usvotefoundation.org, the Overseas Vote website, www.overseasvote.org, and to the US.VOTE website, www.us.vote, and to websites directly controlled by US Vote. All of these sites together are referred to as the “website” regardless of how the services are accessed or used, and through what device. Please note that this privacy policy applies only to information gathered online at our website. It does not apply to information submitted, gathered or maintained by any websites of other companies or organizations whose links appear on our website, or who license our voter services software or hosted system solutions for their own purposes.

The U.S. citizen users of our website may reside in the U.S. or in any other country around the world. As a portion of our users reside in the European Union (EU), the security and privacy policy of the foundation is designed to comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). US Vote’s privacy policy is the same for all visitors and users of our website, regardless of where they reside.

Our company and our web servers are located in the continental United States. If you are located outside of the United States, please be aware that any information you provide to us may be transferred to and stored in the United States; by using our website and giving us your information, you consent to such transfer.   

US Vote does not sell, barter, give away, rent, or permit any outside individual or organization to use or access personal voter information. In the event that independent contractors provide services to us or work on our behalf on programming, marketing, research, website analytics or customer service, these entities are bound by legal contract to uphold the confidentiality and security of any personal information to which they have access through the website. They are legally restricted from use, sale, distribution or alteration of any website data other than purposes outlined in their contracts with our organization.  

When you visit our website, you are agreeing to our privacy practices as described in this policy. The use of our website is a choice and if you are not in agreement with our privacy policy, we recommend that you do not use our website.

How You Share Data with Us

All users of US Vote’s website can browse and use our services without creating an account, logging into an account, or providing personally identifiable information to us. However, if the user chooses to create a Voter Account, the personal information in the account will be stored for their future use. The purpose of the Voter Account service is to streamline the search for relevant public election information and speed repetitive tasks. Please note that the creation of a Voter Account is purely optional. Visitors to the US Vote site can have access to the full complement of information on the site without a Voter Account.

Some of the services we provide may request that you share data with us in order for use to deliver that service to you. Here is a summary of the services that you may choose to use, and through which you may opt to share personal information with us:

• When you create a Voter Account;
• When you generate Voter Registration Form or an Absentee Ballot Request form;
• When you join our mailing list;
• When you sign up to receive Voter Alerts;
• When you participate in survey research;
• When you register for our events;
• When you request assistance through our Voter Help Desk;
• When you update your own Voter Account;
• When you inquire about becoming a volunteer with our organization or respond to a request for volunteers;
• When you inquire about licensing our products or services;
• When you send us email or participate in our social media communications;
• When you donate or assist in donating to US Vote;
• When you participate in any other activities on our website where you knowingly provide personal information.

Voter Form Generation
If you choose to generate a Voter Registration Form or an Absentee Ballot Request form, you will be asked for personal information, such as your name, address and phone number, and that information will be placed on your form for download to your computer.

Your form generation session will be automatically terminated and your form is deleted from our system after a short period of inactivity. No completed voter forms are stored permanently on our system or servers.

Voter Demographics
You may be asked to respond to optional research questions when you are generating forms using our system. It is your choice to answer these questions or not to answer them, and your willingness to answer will not affect the form generation service that you receive from us. This demographic information is used to support voter research and may include questions about education, occupation, number of family members and voting history. Demographic questions are clearly labeled as optional.

Voter Account
The creation of an optional Voter Account results in some of your personal information being stored in our system for your future use. Voter Account information is kept for your use and is never shared publicly. You can delete your Voter Account at any time by logging in and choosing the option: “Remove Account”.

Personal Identification Numbers
In no case will personal identification information such as Social Security number (SSN), driver’s license number, Passport number or any such identifier be stored permanently on our system or your Voter Account. US Vote does not keep ID information in our system of any kind, whether the voter uses a Voter Account or not.

Non-Personal Information
Through your interaction with our website, our servers may record information that is not personal and that does not identify you as an individual. This non-personal information is used for organizational reporting purposes, such as management reports to the board, grant-reporting, and public relations support. It may also be used for operating our website and services. All information reported is in aggregate form, presented as statistics, with no personal voter information of any kind attached.

Log Data
We collect and store information you enter as part of the form generation process with the exception of ID and SSN as well as certain device information about your computer, mobile device, or other device that you use to access the website.

An activity log is used to collect the following types of information:

• IP address, geolocation information, unique device identifiers, browser type, browser language, and other transactional information.
• Certain usage information about your use of the website, for example, a reading history of the pages you view;
• “Traffic data” such as time of access, date of access, software crash reports, session identification number, access times, and referring website addresses is also collected and stored;
• Your search terms and search results

We may also collect and store certain other information regarding our users’ use of the website so that third parties may provide us with reports and analysis regarding usage and browsing patterns of the website.

Cookies
When you access our website for the first time, you will be asked if you agree to our use of cookies and provided an option to manage your cookies settings. We do not store personally identifiable information in cookies or other similar technologies as identifiers.

How We Use Your Information

Our services help you to stay informed about voting, stay civically engaged through voting, and streamline your access to the voting processes specific to your needs. . As such we make use of your personal and non-personal information in the following ways:

• If you use our voter registration or ballot request process, we may contact you in order to remind you to send in your form;
• We may respond to your questions/inquiries, whether through our Voter Help Desk ticket system, or through email, or telephone;
• We may respond to journalistic or academic inquiries with aggregate statistical information in order to inform the editorial or research process;
• We may send you Voter Alerts or communications by email regarding features or changes in our website our policies, notices of improvements to our services; events or special program opportunities or other information that may be relevant to your voting experience;
• You may receive email invitations to participate in voter surveys;
• We may respond by email or phone to your product or service licensing inquiries;
• You may receive emails in order to support new password reset requests;
• We may perform statistical or demographic studies, or other analyses using anonymized, aggregated data to better understand website usage;
• We may use your data to detect or investigate illegal practices or any activities that may violate our policies; and,
• We may be legally required to disclose information about you when requested by subpoena or any other legal process or if there is a legal or regulatory requirement that makes such disclosure necessary.

Survey Research and Development
We periodically conduct voter research to inform our development process. Invitations to participate in our surveys are optional; you are not obligated to respond. All of our surveys are anonymous. An option to opt-out of further survey invitations is always included. This information is consolidated into reports that help us improve our services. No personally identifiable information is ever included in these reports.

Aggregate, Statistical Reports
We use aggregate, non-personal data from users who generate forms through the services on our website for informational reporting purposes. For example, we may generate reports that tell us how forms have been generated by voters in a certain time period, or for which states or counties the forms were generated.

Your Choices

Data Retention
As long as you keep your Voter Account, we retain the personal information you have chosen to share with us. This is done in order to provide you the services that the account offers. Even if you only use your Voter Account to generate forms for certain elections, we maintain the account until you remove it.

Data Access
To access the data in your Voter Account, login and view your Voter Account dashboard. From the dashboard, you can change or remove part or all of the data.

Account Closure/Removal
You may login and chose “Remove Account” to delete your personal Voter Account at any time. You may also send us a request via email to [email protected] to remove your account. Your account and all data will be removed after your identity is authenticated.

When an account is “removed” we anonymize your name, email, all associated addresses, and phone numbers. We retain certain non-personal information in an aggregated form that may be used for operational reporting.

Mailing List
You can unsubscribe from our mailing list at any time. Either send us an email to be removed, or click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of every mailer we send.

GDPR Requests
General Data Privacy Requests and Voter Account removal requests can be sent to [email protected]. Your account and all data will be removed after your identity is authenticated.
 

Additional Information

Children
We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 without verifiable parental consent. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 13 without such consent, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If believe that we might have information from a child under 13, please contact us at [email protected].

Policy Updates
The US Vote website is developed, maintained and hosted in the US. If you are located in a country outside of the US and voluntarily submit personal information to us, you thereby consent to the general use of such information as provided in this Privacy Policy and to the transfer of that information to, and/or storage of that information in, the United States. U.S. Vote Foundation shall not be liable under any circumstances for damages resulting from use of information collected from visitors to the website (see General Liability in our Terms of Use).

We reserve the right to modify or amend the terms of this Privacy Policy periodically without notice. Your continued use of our website following the posting of changes will constitute your acceptance of the modified Privacy Policy.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices of the website, or your dealings with the website, please contact us at: [email protected]

Contacting U.S. Vote Foundation
If you have suggestions, comments or questions regarding this privacy and security policy, please contact:
U.S. Vote Foundation
4325 Old Glebe Road
Arlington, VA 22207 USA
Tel +1 202 470 2480