Third-Party Address Changes

The term third-party address change refers to a voter address change—either residential or mailing address—provided by a party other than the voter or their representative. Such third-party notices include:

Note:  Voter Focus provides programs that, in large part, automate the processing of address changes reported by NCOA vendors. (See An Overview of NCOA Maintenance for more information). NCOA address changes can also be entered one by one using the undeliverable-mail feature.
  • Imported address changes from TEAM VRU, TX Online, or DPS files. Exact matches that are in-county with addresses that are validated by the system are processed automatically. Other imported changes are routed to the Eligibility Match Queue or the DPS Queue for review and processing.

Address changes from third parties are entered through the undeliverable mail feature. The topic Process Undeliverable Mail and Third-Party Address Changes includes instructions on making third-party address changes, but we recommend you familiarize yourself with the concepts below before processing any address changes through undeliverable mail.

For a visual presentation of the address change process, see the Flowchart for Third-Party Address Changes in our User Community.

Processing an out-of-county address change schedules the voter for an Address Confirmation Notice/Final Notice at the new address. If the voter does not respond to the notice within 30 days and has no further activity, they are moved to the Suspense List the next time your office runs the Move Voters to Suspense List program. If the voter responds to the Address Confirmation Notice/Final Notice, your action depends on their response:

Voter says their address has not changed—Do a mail-returned-by-voter operation to record a voter response. Then retrieve their old mailing address from the system (call VR Systems if you need help with this) and replace it in the voter record, overwriting the out-of-state address.

Voter says they have moved, but their new address is in your county—Do a mail-returned-by-voter operation, choose the Address Change Inside County option, and change their residential address to their new address.

Voter confirms that they have indeed moved out of the county—Do a mail-returned-by-voter operation to record a voter response to the Address Confirmation Notice/Final Notice and select Moved out of County, Remove from Register. This changes the voter's status to Ineligible (that is, the status code F(P)) and schedules a Notice of Cancellation.

When a voter moves to another Texas county, their Ballot By Mail Requests do not move with them. They remain in the voter's record in your county, but a ballot will not be sent out because the voter is no longer eligible to receive them from your county. The voter must submit Ballot By Mail requests in their new county of residence if they want mail ballots. When a voter with outstanding Ballot By Mail requests moves, we suggest you notify your Ballot By Mail coordinator so that they can handle such requests in accordance with your county's procedures.

If a voter with an FPCA or all-elections request moves out of the county, their all-elections/FPCA request is canceled (that is, the expiration date of the request is set to yesterday's date) and they are scheduled for a Cancelled Requests Notice if they meet one of the following criteria:

  • The voter has no forwarding address.

OR

  • The forwarding address is out of county.