Just announced by Pew/JEHT Make Voting Work:
Washington, D.C. – 07/09/2008 – Make Voting Work (MVW), a project of the Pew Center on the States in partnership with the JEHT Foundation, has announced up to $400,000 in new funding available for research examining alternatives to precinct-based election day voting, including early in-person and absentee voting and vote by mail systems.
The release and PDF can be found here.