General Considerations

Election Assistance Commission (EAC) products and materials may not be used to state or imply the endorsement by EAC or by any EAC employee of a commercial product, service or activity, or used in any other manner that might be misleading.

However, EAC should be acknowledged as the source of its information and material. Accordingly, we request that EAC be cited as the source of information or material used and that any photo credits or bylines be similarly credited to the photographer or author or EAC, as appropriate.

You may link freely to the EAC Web site or any of its content. We request that you identify that the link is to an EAC Internet resource.

Accessibility

The Election Assistance Commission is committed to ensuring its Web site is accessible to the widest possible audience. When possible, content is provided in multiple languages. In addition, the EAC has implemented the relevant provisions of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, as amended. If you are a person with a disability and you have trouble using our Web site, especially documents provided by third-parties, please tell us about this problem by contacting us at HAVAinfo@eac.gov.

Many documents on this site are Portable Document Format (PDF). Visitors using screen readers may find it useful to visit Adobe’s alternative reader download page to view these documents. In addition, visitors may wish to use tools to convert PDF documents to HTML or text.

Site disclaimer

The Election Assistance Commission maintains this Web site to enhance public access to the EAC's information. This is a service that is continually under development. Section 515 of Public Law 106-554, 44 U.S.C. § 3516, note, ("Section 515") requires that each federal agency subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. chapter 35, issue guidelines for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of the information it disseminates. Section 515 also directs each federal agency to establish an administrative mechanism that allows affected persons to seek and obtain correction of information maintained and disseminated by the agency that does not comply with information quality guidelines issued by the Office of Management and Budget ("OMB"). EAC’s Information Quality Act guidelines can be found on this Web site.

For documents and software available from this server, the EAC does not warrant or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed.

The documents on this Web site may contain hypertext pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. Please be aware that we do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of this outside information. Further, the inclusion of pointers to particular items in hypertext is not intended to reflect their importance, nor is it intended to endorse any views expressed or products or services offered by the author of the reference or the organization operating the server on which the reference is maintained.

Any translation of these documents into languages other than English is intended solely as a convenience to the non-English-reading public. We have attempted to provide an accurate translation of the text, but the official text is the English text and any differences in the translation are not binding and have no legal effect. References identifying the original document in English are available in most non-English documents.
 

Privacy

The Election Assistance Commission is strongly committed to maintaining the privacy of your personal information and the security of our computer systems. With respect to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information, EAC makes every effort to ensure compliance with applicable federal law, including, but not limited to, The Privacy Act of 1974, The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, and The Freedom of Information Act.

As a general rule, the Election Assistance Commission does not collect personally-identifiable information about you when you visit our site, unless you choose to provide such information to us. The information we receive depends upon what you do when visiting our site.

If you respond to an online request for personal information:

Generally, the information requested by The EAC will be used to respond to your inquiry or to provide you with the service associated with the request. However, when this information is requested, the reasons for collecting it with a description of the EAC's intended use of the information will be fully described in a customized "Privacy Notice." This Privacy Notice will either appear on the Web page collecting the information or be accessible through a link prominently displayed immediately preceding the information request.

If you visit our site to read or download information:

For site management purposes, we collect statistical information. EAC uses this information to determine interest in various areas of the site and to monitor system performance. We do not collect personally identifiable information or attempt to identify individual users and their usage patterns. We collect and store only the following information:

• The name of the domain from which you access the Internet (for example, EAC.gov, if you are connecting from the Election Assistance Commission's computer account).

• The date and time you access our site.

• The Internet address of the Web site from which you linked directly to our site.

• The duration of a visit.


If you identify yourself by sending an e-mail containing personal information:

You also may decide to send us personally-identifiable information, for example your mailing address, in an electronic mail message requesting that information be mailed to you. Information collected in this manner is used solely for responding to requests for information or records. We may forward your e-mail to other Government employees who are better able to respond to you. Should you wish to file a request under FOIA, instructions are provided at: http://www.eac.gov/freedom_of_information_act.aspx. 

If you link to other sites outside EAC:

Our Web site has many links to other sites. When you link to any of these sites, you are no longer on our site and are subject to the privacy policy of the new site.

Security

For security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, our Web site also employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, to cause harm, or otherwise cause damage.

Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on this service are strictly prohibited. Unauthorized use, tampering with or modification of this system—including supporting hardware or software—may subject the violator to criminal or civil penalties. In the event of unauthorized intrusion, all relevant information regarding possible violation of law may be provided to law enforcement officials.

Cookie Use Notice  

A cookie is a small piece of text placed on a client computer by a Web site server when the client first visits the site. This text is subsequently used by the server to personalize the client browsing experience, track client page clicks for statistical purposes, etc. In technical terms, a cookie allows the stateless HTTP protocol to maintain client state.

There are two types of cookies – a “session” cookie that is stored in your computer’s primary memory and deleted when you close your browser, and a “persistent” cookie that is stored on your hard drive and is available to the server even after you close and reopen your browser.

The EAC Web site uses only session cookies. However, we use an external service to track site usage statistics and the external service provider places a persistent cookie on your hard drive. No cookies used by EAC ever store any information that may be used to identify you personally.