Scanning and Indexing of Application Forms and Other Documents

Voter Focus allows scanned images of paper documents to be stored on the county network and associated with the voter record. Images that might be held include:

Voter registration applications
Final notices returned by the voter
Letters sent by the voter to the elections office
Affidavits signed by the voter at the polls
FPCA applications

Some of these images contain voter signatures that your office might want to examine when verifying signatures on petitions, mail ballots, and the like.

Voter Focus has programs on the Voter Registration tab that allow you to scan paper documents and then link (or index) the resulting digital images to voter records. Once an image has been indexed to a voter's record, you can see it on the voter's Doc Images and Comms tabs. The date shown for the image is the date the image was scanned.

Scanning and indexing is primarily used to link a digital copy of the voter's paper application forms to the voter's record. But you can also index other types of documents, as noted above.

The Scanning Process

Digital images are created by scanning the paper document with a scanner machine connected to a workstation where the user is running Voter Registration > Scan Documents. Documents are usually scanned in a batch of similar documents. For example, a batch might consist of voter registration applications.

Prior to scanning a batch of documents, you are asked to assign them a communication type from a drop-down list. To scan a document into the system, it must be assigned a communication type that has the option Image Expected for this Communication selected in VOTER FOCUS ADMIN > System Codes > Communication Type Codes. The drop-down list shows only those communication types where this option is selected.

Note: The communication type also specifies the expected size of the image, and controls the light/dark contrast and brightness. See How to Maintain Voter Communication Types for more information on the communication type settings and how they might affect a scanned image.

When scanning voter registration applications (communication type C, Scanned Front of Card Img), the Scan Documents program verifies that the scanned image file will not exceed the 200-KB size limit imposed by the State on signature clips and images of the voter registration applications sent to FVRS. If you get a message stating that an image is too large, you will need to make adjustments and rescan the application. Usually this means scanning at a lower dots per inch (dpi) setting, not scanning in color, or cutting off the top portion of the voter registration form (that is, the instructional text that doesn't contain the voter's information) so that less material is being scanned. Documents that are not assigned communication type C, Scanned Front of Card Img are not sent to FVRS as part of the voter's record and are therefore not subject to the 200-KB size restriction.

Scanned images are stored in a temporary work area on your network where they remain until they are indexed to voter records. The temporary work area is usually set up as I:\WorkSig, but this location isn’t required. To see where your temporary work area is located, go to VOTER FOCUS ADMIN > System Options > Image Indexing > Work Area for scanned images.

To see the Scan Documents button on the Console, the user must have the permission VRScanner.

For details on this process, see How to Scan Application Forms and Other Documents.

The Indexing Process

Indexing links a particular scanned image to a particular voter's record. During the indexing process, the user can extract a copy of the voter's signature (if present on the document) and save it along with the parent image. This signature clip can then be called up later for verification against incoming documents, such as petitions or Vote-By-Mail ballots. A facility on the Doc Images tab lets you reclip the signature without having to reindex the image.

The indexing process moves the indexed image to the permanent network location designated for scanned images. This location is set up by VR Systems personnel during installation of Voter Focus. If you are curious about the location of your indexed images, go to VOTER FOCUS ADMIN > System Options > Image Indexing > Drive for Indexed Images. Image file names have the format:

<voter ID>.001, <voter ID>.002, etc.

After indexing, signature clips and the images of the voter registration applications are sent to FVRS to be stored with voter records.

To see the Index Images button on the Console, the user must have the permission IndexImages.

For details on the Index Images program, see How to Index Scanned Images to Voter Records.

Two Methods for Indexing Applications

There are two methods for indexing voter registration applications. The scanning procedure is the same for both methods: save the scanned images with the communication type C, Scanned Front of Card Img.

Method 1—Scan After Creating/Updating the Record, Index Manually

Using the paper application as the source for data entry, go to VOTER REGISTRATION > Application Forms and create or update the voter application on the database.
Scan the paper application using VOTER REGISTRATION > Scan Documents.
Index the scanned image to the voter record using VOTER REGISTRATION > Index Images.

Method 2—Scan First, then Create/Update the Record, Indexing is Automatic

Scan the paper application using VOTER REGISTRATION > Scan Documents.
Working from an online view of the scanned document, create or update the voter application and save it (using VOTER REGISTRATION > Application Forms). This automatically indexes the image to the voter's record.

This method is called Scan First. To use Scan First, your county must select the option VOTER FOCUS ADMIN > System Options > Use Scan First.

For counties using the Scan First method, indexing of voter registration applications is done automatically when the voter's application record is saved while the scanned image is displayed side-by-side with the voter's application record. So it is not necessary to perform a separate indexing process for voter registration applications. However, other documents that you want to index to voter records will need to be indexed using VOTER REGISTRATION > Index Images.

For instructions on the Scan First process, see How to Process Applications Using Scan First.