Find a Voter's Record

Most searches are conducted from the Find a Voter dialog where you can search for voter registration records in your local county database and in the statewide FVRS database.

The Find a Voter dialog appears when you:

  • Run VOTER REGISTRATION > Voter Maintenance.
  • Click the Close icon on the voter record toolbar.
  • Click the Find icon on the voter record toolbar.
Note: The Find a Voter dialog appears in additional Voter Focus programs that require you to associate a document or record with a voter. In these other programs, searches are usually limited to the local database.

Most searches by county elections officials are performed against their local database. An exception is when you are processing a new voter registration application and you search FVRS to verify that the applicant is not already registered to vote in Florida. This type of searching is described in How to Verify a Voter Record Doesn't Already Exist.

You can perform an FVRS search to access an existing record for a voter in your county, but if you are updating the record, most counties make the changes to the local record, although this is not required. Changes made locally are transmitted by Voter Focus to FVRS, and vice versa, so the information duplicated on the two systems stays in sync. Records of out-of-county voters are displayed only in read-only mode.

If you cannot find a local voter and you suspect it's because their name has changed, use the Local Voter Search through Prior Names feature.

A local search does just what the name implies: it searches for voter records matching the search criteria in your local county database.

Note: Pressing the Enter key or clicking Local Search on the Find a Voter dialog will open the last local voter record accessed from your workstation, provided that you have not changed databases.
  1. Go to VOTER REGISTRATION > Voter Maintenance to open the Find a Voter dialog.
  2. On the Search by Name tab, enter one or more of the following data items:
    • The voter ID number. (Enter this number in the Last Name field.)
    • As much of the voter's name as you can. If you do not know the voter ID, you must enter a surname—either whole or partial—in the Last Name field.

    3. If you aren't sure of the spelling of the name or you only have a partial name, you can use the wildcard character (%) in any of the name fields to have Voter Focus perform a wider search, which is likely to give you a longer list of results. For example, the search criterion Wil% in the Last Name field returns all voters whose last name begins with Wil. See Ways to Use the Wildcard Character in Searching for more information.

    If the voter's last name has embedded spaces (for example, La Rosa) or apostrophes (such as O’Neal), you need not enter the apostrophe or a space in the search criteria in order to find the name. For example, to find La Rosa, you can enter larosa or la rosa. To find O'Neal, you can enter oneal, o'neal, or o neal.

    • The voter's birth date. For the birth year, you need enter only the last two digits; Voter Focus will fill in the first two digits for you.
    • The voter's Florida driver license number of Florida ID number.
  3. Click Local Search or press Enter.
  4. One of the following occurs:
    • Exact match. If your search criteria finds an exact match, the voter record displays.
    • Multiple matches. If your search criteria finds multiple voters, the Voter Search Result dialog appears listing the matching voters with their current voter-registration status indicated by color. The list shows additional data—the residential addresses, gender, race, and political party affiliation—which might help you determine which voter in the list is the one you want. You can also sort the list by the various columns such as address or birth date. (Click a column heading to sort the list.)

    5. On the Voter Search Result dialog, locate and double-click the correct name to open the voter's record.

Note: Note that entries highlighted in yellow on the Voter Search Result dialog mean the voter's application is Incomplete or Pending. You will not be able to make changes to the voter's record via a local search while their application is in either of these statuses. If you need to make a change, you must change the application, not the record. To change the application:
    1. Run VOTER REGISTRATION > Application Forms to open the Find a Voter dialog.
    2. Access the record by entering the voter ID or name and clicking Application Search.
    3. Enter the required information and click Save.

This type of search is useful if you have an address but cannot read the name on the application form.

  1. Run VOTER REGISTRATION > Voter Maintenance to open the Find a Voter dialog.
  2. On the Local Search by Address tab, enter as much of the residential address as you can. An entry in the Street Name field is required; the other fields are optional. In the Street Name field, you can use the wildcard character (%) to broaden the search. For example, entering HIL% returns all street names beginning with HIL. See Ways to Use the Wildcard Character in Searching for more information.
  3. Click Local Search or press Enter.
  4. Do one of the following:
    • One address match. If Voter Focus finds one or more voters whose residential address matches your search criteria, the Voter Search Result dialog appears, listing those voter(s). Locate and double-click a name to open the voter's record.
    • Multiple address matches. If multiple street segments match the search criteria, the Select Street dialog appears, listing each matching street segment along with the number of voters in each street segment. (Street segments highlighted in red are not residential and therefore contain no voters.)
      1. Click the street segment where the voter you seek resides. The Select Individual Addresses dialog appears, listing each residential address in that street segment.
      2. Locate the voter's address, click Select.
      3. On the Voter Search Result dialog, locate and double-click the correct name to open the voter's record.

On the Search by Name tab, the search requirements for an FVRS search are similar to those for a local search except that you must enter a first and last name (either full or partial with wildcard) unless you enter the voter ID.

A more detailed search can be performed from the FVRS General Search tab on the Find a Voter dialog. On this tab, you can enter additional search criteria, such as the residential address, party, and county. The wildcard character (%) can be used in the non-numeric fields on this tab.

Click FVRS Search on either tab to start the search.