Set Up Temporary Ballot Styles for an Election
The temporary ballot style feature lets you generate Vote-By-Mail requests
for all-elections/FPCA voters before assignment of an election's permanent
ballot styles. This feature is important if your county receives requests
for candidate labels early in an election cycle, and candidates want their
label set to include all-elections/FPCA voters as well as single-request
voters. Prior to the implementation of temporary ballot styles, this wasn't
possible, because the program
that generates all-elections/FPCA requests requires the assignment
of ballot styles to generate those requests. With temporary ballot styles
assigned, you can provide candidates with labels for allVote-By-Mail
voters in their district, meeting their requests in a timely manner without
having to create permanent ballot styles prematurely.
Setup of temporary ballot styles is simple: you don't have to create
them and assign them to precincts like permanent ballot styles. The system
does the work for you when you select the
Probably Voting option on the Election
Precinct Details dialog for each voting precinct. Selecting Probably Voting automatically
assigns these standard temporary ballot styles to the precinct:
For general elections, GXX
For primary elections, (as appropriate):
DXX for
Democrats
RXX for
Republicans
GXX for
non-partisan voters
SXX for
minor party 1 voters
OXX for
minor party 2 voters
Once you've selected Probably Voting,
you'll see the temporary ballot style in the Style
column on the voter's Vote-By-Mail tab on any new requests that are added. When the value in the Style
column is XXX, it means no ballot style was defined at the time
the request was added.
Temporary ballots styles are replaced with permanent ballot styles when
you assign the
permanent ones to precincts. It isn't necessary to clear the Probably Voting check box when you
assign permanent ballot styles. You should be aware that you won't see
the permanent ballot styles in voter records until:
- You
do a Deliver
Ballots run that includes those voters.
- You
run the utility Update
Voter Ballot Styles, which examines each voter with a Vote-By-Mail
request for the focused election, determines what their current ballot
style should be, and updates the voter's record with the current ballot
style.
Mail ballots cannot be sent out—that is, you won't be able to do a Deliver
Ballots run—until permanent ballot styles are assigned.
The existence of temporary ballot styles also enables your county to
transmit the daily Absentee Ballot Request Information File
to FVRS.
Set up the use of temporary ballot styles:
- Ensure that the election for which you want to use temporary
ballot styles is the focused election. If not, click Change
Election Status on the Console and select the election.
- Go to ELECTIONS > Maintain
Election Settings > Ballot Styles > Assign Ballot Styles to
Precincts.
- If this election has both Vote-By-Mail Requests and Advance Ballots
selected on the Election
Maintenance dialog, the Select
Ballot Type dialog opens. Select Vote-By-Mail Ballots and click OK.
- On the Election
Precinct Details dialog, highlight the first precinct or precinct
split where you want to set up a temporary ballot style.
- Select the check box Probably
Voting. If the election is a primary, you will need to select
Probably Voting for each party
and for NPA voters.
- Click Close on
the Maintain Election Settings
dialog.
- Go to Vote-By-Mail > Vote-By-Mail
Utilities > Generate All-Elections/FPCA Requests.
This creates Vote-By-Mail requests for the election for all-elections
and FPCA voters. The requests will have the temporary ballot styles
assigned. Voters with existing Vote-By-Mail requests for the elections
will automatically have the temporary ballot styles applied.
Note: You
cannot rely on the daily background task (AbsenteeGenerateRequests, which
runs around 5 am) to generate these Vote-By-Mail requests automatically
unless the election's status is Active. If you are using temporary ballot
styles, in all likelihood, your election's status is still set to Open.
If that is the case, you must run the Generate
All-Elections/FPCA Requests utility to generate requests.
