About Scanning And Indexing Documents
Voter Focus allows scanned or imported images of paper documents to be stored on the county network and associated with voter records. Some of the common images that can be stored include:
- Voter registration applications
- Notices returned by the voter
- Letters sent by the voter to the elections office
- Affidavits signed by the voter at the polls
- ABBMs
- FPCA applications
- Returned mail ballot envelopes
Some of these images contain voter signatures that your office might want to examine when verifying signatures on petitions, mail ballots, and the like.
There are several Voter Focus programs that scan or import images. The Ballot By Mail tab offers the following two programs:
- Scan ABBM
- Scan Return Envelopes (returned mail ballot envelopes)
The Voter Registration tab includes the Scan Document program.
After documents are scanned or imported and the digital images are saved in Voter Focus, they can be associated with (or indexed to) voter records. Once an image has been indexed to a voter's record, you can see it on the Doc Images and Comms tabs in Voter Maintenance. The date shown for the image is the date the image was scanned.
The Scanning/Importing 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, Ballot By Mail > Scan ABBM, or Ballot By Mail > Scan Return Envelopes. Or, you can import images saved in a common folder on your machine or on your network.
Documents are usually scanned/imported in a batch of similar documents. For example, a batch might consist of voter registration applications. Prior to scanning/importing documents, you first create a batch by assigning it a unique set of box and batch descriptions that will define the organizational location for the images. These descriptions can be numeric, alpha, or a combination of both. For Scan ABBM and Scan Return Envelopes, this is all you need to create a batch. You can add a comment if further instruction or description is needed.
In Scan Documents, in addition to the box and batch descriptions, you must also select a communication type for the batch. The system identifies the program in Voter Focus that is used to process an image by the communication type. Voter Focus includes default communication types; however, they can be customized for your county using VOTER FOCUS ADMIN > System Codes > Communication Type Codes. You can scan all communication types in Scan Documents that have the option Image Expected for this Communication selected in System Codes.
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 set up as I:\WorkSig. This location is shown on the VOTER FOCUS ADMIN > System Options > Image Indexing tab.
Image File Size
You can import image files that are up to 8 MG in size. If you receive an error advising an image you're importing is too large, you can do any of the following to reduce the file size:
- If your image file extension is JPG, PNG, or TIFF, simply saving the image as a GIF file will reduce the size. This may affect the image quality.
- Resize the image to a smaller size. You probably want to keep the same aspect ratio. Many image programs like SnagIt or Paint have this option.
- Crop a portion of the image. This works well if you have non-relevant areas in your image that you do not need.
Permissions
To see the Scan Documents button on the Console, the user must have the permission VRScanner.
Additional Information
The Indexing Process
Indexing is simply the association of a scanned image to a specific voter record. During the indexing process, the user can create a copy of just the voter's signature (if present on the document) and save it along with the parent image. This signature clip can then be used later for verification against incoming documents, such as petitions or Ballot 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.
The following programs automatically index images, including any signature clips, to voter records during processing, so there is no need to index manually:
- Ballot By Mail > Process ABBMs. Indexes ABBM application and signature clip images.
- Ballot By Mail > Return Ballots Queue. Indexes returned mail ballot envelope signature images.
- Ballot By Mail > Ballot Judge Queue. Indexes returned mail ballot envelope signature images.
- Ballot By Mail > FPCA. Indexes FPCA applications and signature clip images.
- Voter Registration > Application Forms. Indexes Texas voter registration applications and signature clip images.
- Elections > Process Limited Ballots. Indexes limited ballots and signature clip images.
- Elections > Record Provisional Ballots. Indexes provisional ballots and signature clip images.
You can index images manually for other document types using Voter Registration > Index Images. Images processed automatically by the Application Forms and FPCA programs are not included (listed) in the Index Images program.
When you open an image in a batch of images, the image remains locked for one hour. Other users trying to access that batch of images will receive a locked notification with the date and time the image will be unlocked.
To see the Index Images button on the Console, the user must have the permission IndexImages.
For details on the Index Images program, see Index Scanned Images to Voter Records.
