Process Voting History Data

The final phase of an election cycle is devoted to processing of the county's voting history data. During this phase, elections officials complete the entry of all voting activities into the county database— Ballot By Mail ballots are returned, provisional ballots are accepted or rejected, and precinct registers are swiped.

When the activity for each precinct is recorded, it is totaled and reconciled with the balloting totals from the tabulation system, as required by statute. Any differences between the two sets of totals should be resolved. If a perfect reconciliation is not possible, the reasons for any differences should be determined and clearly documented as part of the election record. The objectives are:

  • To ensure that all voters who voted will get credit for doing so.
  • To verify that there are no duplicate votes or other irregularities.
Tip: Best Practice When Adding Primary Elections

To ensure that voters can only vote in one party’s primary or primary runoff election, group together these elections as well as any election for which party-specific ballots will be issued.

To group an election:

  1. Ensure the election you want to group is in focus.
  2. Make a note of the election number you want to group the election with.
  3. Go to ELECTIONS > Maintain Election Settings.
  4. Enter the number of the election to be grouped.
  5. Click Save. The name of the election is then added to the Grouped Elections box.

During the Ballot By Mail Request process, the system validates for each election listed:

  • Is the election grouped?
  • If grouped, has the voter already requested a ballot for an election in the group?

If both validation checks are true, you cannot add a request for that voter and election combination.

In addition, you cannot record register history for a voter who has already voted in an election that is grouped with the election that is in focus.

Once all totals are reconciled, the last step is to run the Update Voting History program. This program transfers voting data from temporary working files to individual voter's records.

From the moment the polls close, you will probably receive requests for voter turnout data from candidates and the press. To provide this information, you must first run the Update Voting History program to distribute the voting history results into voter records. Once this is done, you can then run the requested reports. You need not wait until all processing and reconciliation is complete, though. You can run the Update Voting History program at convenient intervals, as voting historical data is processed.

When the Update Voting History program is run for the last time, you should then print and archive the election reports. For a list of the reports we recommend archiving, see Reports to Archive After an Election.

Note: Do not undertake any reorganization of precincts until after the election reports are printed.

The following tasks must be completed in order to complete the final run of the Update Voting History program. These tasks are typically performed simultaneously by various groups in the elections office. As noted above, you can create preliminary voting history files before all these tasks are complete.

Note: The topic Voting History Reminders lists some suggestions and things to keep in mind when you are doing voting history processing.

All mail ballots, whether returned from voters or returned by the postal service as undeliverable, should be processed as returned using Ballot By Mail > Return Ballots Queue. (See About Returned Ballots for instructions.) Even ballots that were returned too late to be counted in the tabulation totals should be return processed so the voters will receive credit for voting.

Note: It is important that all mail ballots be return processed through Ballot By Mail > Return Ballots Queue. Do not use the Voting History Maintenance dialog to record returned mail ballots.

All provisional ballots that were not recorded during early voting or at polling places on election day should be recorded, along with their disposition by the Ballot Board, by going to ELECTIONS > Record Provisional Ballot and using the New Provisional Ballot Entry dialog.

Note: Do not use the Voting History Maintenance dialog to record provisional ballots. However, you can use this dialog to record the disposition of a provisional ballot that has already been entered into the system.

If your county uses a tabulation system from ES&S Unity or Dominion GEMS, the totals from the tabulation equipment can be imported into Voter Focus and will then appear in voting history reports. (See Import Tabulation Totals from ES&S Unity or Import Tabulation Totals from Dominion GEMS for instructions.)

If you do not import the tabulation totals, you will need to run reports from your tabulation system for comparison against the voting history reports from Voter Focus.

After canvassing for an election is complete, Voter Focus provides an easy method to import the list of voters who voted in the election, including the dates and times, that is stored in the KnowInk electronic pollbook used in your jurisdiction.

See Import Pollbook Data for more information.

To reconcile the number of voters that were checked in with the totals from your ballot tabulation system, you will need to be sure all of the previous processing tasks described above are complete. Then you can run the voting history reports described in this section. Any differences between the two sets of totals should be rectified. If this is not possible, the reasons for the differences should be clearly understood and documented as part of the election record.

Note: We do not recommend the use of reports produced in the FlexRep program for voting history reconciliation. FlexRep reports can include voters who voted in another county and then moved into your county the day after the election. In such cases, the totals from FlexRep reports would not match tabulation totals, and so the reports would not be useful for reconciliation.
  1. Print the report Voting History vs Tabulation Results for the precinct and compare the History total (that is, the sum of the Register and Non Register totals) with the Tabulation total, which is the total recorded by the tabulation system. The amount shown in the row labeled Difference should be 0 (zero).

    If there are differences, recheck the precinct registers and verify that all voting voters and no non-voting voters were swiped. To change the voting history for a voter, simply re-swipe their bar code.

  2. Run the report Possible Voting Irregularities and resolve issues reported there as much as you can. You might find voters who appear to have voted both by mail and at the polls, or voters who became ineligible on or just before election day. This report often reveals processing errors, rather than true irregularities in voting, so carefully research every issue to determine its cause.

The reports Precinct Register Voting Details and the Precinct Register Non-Voting Pages—both run from ELECTIONS > Reconcile History > Reconciliation > Reports Precinct Register Data Entry—can be useful in pinpointing the cause of totals that don't balance.

Once the voting history totals are reconciled with the tabulation totals, the next step is to run the Update Voting History program.The program transfers voting data from temporary working files to individual voter's records. And it does several other housekeeping-type tasks within the county database.

To run voting analysis reports that provide the demographic and turnout information often requested by candidates and the press, you must first run the Update Voting History program to distribute the voting history results into voter records. Once this is done, you can then run the requested reports at convenient intervals, as voting activity is processed.

  • Updates individual voters' records to show their voting activity for this election (Voted, Early Voted, Voted Absentee, Voted Early Limited Ballot, Absentee Not Counted, Provisional Not Counted, Did not Vote, or Not Eligible.) The Not Eligible status applies to city elections where only certain voters were eligible.
  • Clears the ID Required to Vote field in the records of any MARG voters who voted, as they would have presented a photo ID in order to vote.
  • Activates any Suspense voters who voted in the election.
  • Optionally creates a Voting History Activity report and flags the voting history data as the final version.

The Update Voting History program is one of the most resource intensive programs in the Voter Focus system. We recommend that you run the program on a quiet system, and that you execute the program on the Voter Focus server.

  1. Ensure that the election is the focused election. If not, click Change Election Status on the Console and select the election.
  2. Go to ELECTIONS > Reconcile History > Update Voting History > Update Voting History to open the Full or Incremental Update dialog.

  3. Click OK to update the records of voters who voted at the polls and/or provisionally. (The voting history of voters who voted early or by mail ballot are updated as they were checked in or their ballots were returned and processed.)

As soon as the update run is finished, you can respond to campaign requests for list files and labels by running FlexRep reports. See Create a List of Those Voting in an Election for more information.

When you are certain that all voting activity has been recorded and you have made the final run of the Update Voting History program, you can then print and archive the election reports and change the election's status to Closed. See Reports to Archive After an Election for more information.

Your county must submit a record of the voting history updates on a daily basis during an election's early voting period through the day after the election date. This is done using Export Voter History Data in the TEAM interface.

To review what's included in the export file, see TEAM Voter History Codes.