Third-Party Address Changes

Flowchart of Third-Party Address Change Procedure

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:

A USPS change-of-address notice accompanying a piece of undeliverable mail sent to the voter by the elections office. This includes mail ballots returned as undeliverable with a change-of-address notice.
A jury notice on which the voter indicated a change of address or a report from the court system indicating a change of address for the voter that does not match the residential address you currently have on file. (See How to Process Address Changes on Jury Notices for more information.)
A report from an NCOA vendor indicating a change of address for a voter.

Note Voter Focus provides programs that, in large part, automate the processing of address changes reported by NCOA vendors. (See About Processing of NCOA Address Changes for more information). NCOA address changes can also be entered one-by-one using the undeliverable-mail feature.

HSMV lists of voters who have surrendered their Florida driver license in another state. These lists typically provide the voter's new out-of-state address.
Any of the above suspended to your county by another Florida elections office.

Address changes from third parties are entered through the undeliverable-mail feature. The topic How to 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.

Does the Voter Have a Mailing Address?

When you initiate processing of undeliverable mail with a forwarding address, Voter Focus first determines whether the voter has a mailing address. The absence or presence of a mailing address determines how the address change will be processed by the system.

Yes, voter has mailing address

Scenario

Actions

Notices Scheduled

Forwarding address matches residence address

User indicates that the forwarding address matches the residence address.
Voter Focus removes the mailing address from the voter's record.

None

Forwarding address differs from the residence address.

New address can be:

In-county

Out-of-county

Out-of-state

User enters the forwarding address.
Voter Focus updates the mailing address with the new address.

Voter Information Card

Address Confirmation Request (optional)

No, voter doesn't have a mailing address

Scenario	Actions			Notices Scheduled
Forwarding address is a valid residence address in your county.	User enters the forwarding address. Voter Focus updates the voter's residential address.			Address Chance Notice to new residential address Voter Info Card (voter label optional)
Forwarding address is in your county but it can't be validated against the local Streets table.	User enters the forwarding address. User instructs system to record new address as mailing address.			Address Confirmation Request to new mailing address
Forwarding address is out of county (regardless of whether the new address validates on FVRS).	User enters the forwarding address. User suspends voter to new county. New county processes suspense record. Forwarding address validates as residence address in new county?
		YES		Address Change Notice and Voter Info Card (new county) (voter label optional)
		NO	Voter Focus updates mailing address with forwarding address, restores old residential address, and suspends voter back to original county.	Address Confirmation Request (original county-optional)
New address is out of state	User enters the forwarding address as new mailing address. Voter Focus cancels any all-elections mail-ballot requests.			Address Confirmation Final Notice to new address.

Voters Who Appear to Have Moved Out of State

Processing a out-of-state address change schedules the voter for an Address Confirmation Final Notice at the new address. If the voter does not respond to the final notice within 30 days and has no further activity, they will be made Inactive the next time your office runs the Inactivate Voters program. If the voter responds to the 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 or another Florida county—Do a mail-returned-by-voter operation, choose the Address Change Inside State option, and change their residential address to their new address.

Voter confirms that they have indeed moved out of Florida—Do a mail-returned-by-voter operation to record a voter response to the final notice and select Moved out of State, Remove from Register. This will change the voter's status to Ineligible (that is, the status code F(P)).

Vote-by-Mail Requests for Voters Moving Out of County

When a voter moves to another Florida county, their vote-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 will need to make vote-by-mail requests in their new county of residence if they want mail ballots. When a voter with outstanding vote-by-mail requests moves, we suggest you notify your vote-by-mail coordinator so that they can handle such requests in accordance with your county's procedures.

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

The voter has a residence address but no mailing address AND the forwarding address is out of state (and is therefore entered in the mailing address field).

The voter has no forwarding address.

The forwarding address is out of county. In such cases, the voter is suspended to their new county. Successful suspense processing by the new county moves the voter into the new county, which then invalidates the mail-ballot requests and all-elections requests in the old county

Note If the new county cannot validate the voter's address, the new county will suspend the voter back to their old county where the mailing address is updated. If this happens, the future mai-ballot requests and all-elections/FPCA request will not be cancelled.

Returned Item is a Mail-Ballot Package

If a mail-ballot package returned as undeliverable by the postal service contains a change-of-address notice, you should record the return in VOTE BY MAIL > Return Ballots, selecting a referral reason of Temporarily Away/Forwarding Address. Then process the package as undeliverable mail with a third-party address change.