About Application For Ballot By Mail (ABBM)

A completed, submitted, and accepted ABBM allows voters in Texas to receive and cast a ballot by mail, email, or fax.

ABBMs can be submitted for a single election or as an annual request for all elections held in the calendar year. An Annual ABBM is one for which a voter either has not specified an election or indicates it is an application for more than one election by checking the Annual box. Only voters that are voting by mail on the grounds of age or disability may submit an Annual ABBM.

To be able to cast an early voting absentee ballot, a qualified voter must fall into one of the following categories:

  • Is 65 years or older on election day
  • Has a disability, defined as a sickness or physical condition that prevents voting in person
  • Expects to be out of the county during voting hours (not applicable to annual All Elections requests)
  • Is confined in jail 1) serving a misdemeanor sentence and will not be released prior to election day, 2) pending trial or an appeal of a conviction after denial of bail or without bail, or where release on bail before election day is unlikely (not applicable to annual All Elections requests)
  • Expected to give birth within three weeks before or after Election Day
  • Is civilly committed under Chapter 841, Health and Safety Code

1. Scan ABBM

You must scan ABBMs in Voter Focusto create a digital image of the applications before they can be processed for acceptance or rejection.

Texas law requires that counties keep a record of the original ABBMs sent by the voter. However, since the information on the ABBM must be referenced by a number of different processes, it is a best practice to keep a scanned image of the ABBM in the system.

2. Process ABBMs

After scanning an ABBM or importing an ABBM image file, the next step is to process the ABBM requests. All ABBMs that have been scanned but are not processed appear in the Process ABBM Queue. From this queue, you can find the voter to which the ABBM is to be assigned, review the ABBM detail, create a signature clip, and then mark the request as Accepted or Rejected.

3. Pending Requests Queue

Texas law allows voters to request an absentee ballot by sending their ABBM to their county via email or fax. In addition, voters must also provide the county the original completed paper copy of the ABBM within four business days of receipt of the initial application sent via email or fax. If a voter does not meet this deadline, the ABBM request must be rejected.

In Voter Focus, after an ABBM requested by email or fax is accepted, the request is sent to the Pending Requests Queue. This queue is used to reject email and fax ABBM requests that are past the deadline.

4. Cure ABBM Queue

After processing ABBM requests, applications and ballots that are found to be defective are moved to the Cure ABBM Queue. From this queue you are able to fix, or "cure", these records one by one. The Cure ABBM Queue dialog shows both applications and ballots that require curing.

  1. Go to Voter Registration > Voter Maintenance and search for the voter.
  2. On the Maint tab in the voter's record, click Printing. The Schedule Document Printing dialog displays.
  3. Select Application for Ballot By Mail in the Notice Type column.
  4. Click Schedule Document for Printing.
    5. Note: This option is not available for voters with Pending State Verification status.
  5. Go to Printing > Notices Queue to select and print the scheduled notice.
  6. Do one of the following to print the address label:
    • Print the residence, mailing, or temporary address:
      1. Go back to the Schedule Document Printing dialog.
      2. Click Address Label.
      3. Select the Residence or Mailing address or enter a Temporary address.
      4. Click OK.
    • Print the default Ballot By Mail address:
      1. Go to the Ballot By Mail tab in the voter's record.
      2. Click Ballot By Mail Address.
      3. Click Print Address Label in the Default Ballot Address box.