Using Voter Focus without FVRS

Like all computer systems, FVRS occasionally goes temporarily offline during the business day. You’ll know when this happens because the text (FVRS not available) or (without FVRS) will appear in the title bar of Voter Focus dialogs and when you start a Voter Focus program, you’ll see a message advising you that you are running without FVRS.

But an offline FVRS does not mean you can’t use Voter Focus. Many features are still operational. The table below lists the functions that are available and those that cannot be used when FVRS is down.

The Sandbox database is never connected to FVRS, so this table also serves as a good description of the activities you can perform when connected to Sandbox.

Area/Program Available Functions Functions Not Available

Candidate Services

All

 

Counter Program

Record early voting activities

Record in-office absentee voting activities

Make in-county address changes locally. (These changes are added to the Suspense Queue and must be processed after FVRS becomes available to update the voter's address on the State system.)

Make address changes that move voters into or out of the county

Perform FVRS lookups on voter records

Election Activities

Generate precinct registers

Run reports

Set up ballot styles for existing elections

Set up new elections

FlexRep Program

All

 

List Maintenance Activities

Run reports

Inactivate voters

Activate 18-year-olds

Convert status of Inactive voters to Ineligible

NCOA Processing

Export data file to NCOA

Import NCOA Response Spreadsheet

Auto-Process Zip Code Updates from NCOA

Scheduling and Printing Notices

All

 

Petition Activities

Verify local petitions

Verify statewide petitions

Make address changes

Phone Bank Program

All except those using FVRS lookups.

Perform FVRS lookups

Place Maintenance

All

 

Election Workers

All except lookup records of out-of-county workers registered in another county.

 

Precinct Maintenance

All

 

Public Program

All

 

Streets Activities

Perform street lookups

Run reports

Update street data

Vote-By-Mail Activities

 

Record Vote-By-Mail requests

Record all-elections requests for mail ballots

Record in-office absentee voting activities

Process Vote-By-Mail requests made on your website if the ballot address is in the US

Update default ballot addresses

Update specific-election ballot addresses

Process Vote-By-Mail requests made on your website if the ballot address is outside the US

Process FPCA applications and FPCA Vote-By-Mail requests

Voter Focus Admin

All except those related to redistricting.

Perform redistricting functions

Voter Card Program

All

 

Voter Label Program

All

 

Voter Lookup Program

All

 

Voter Registration Activities

Look up voter records on the county database

Record early voting activities

Record in-office absentee voting activities

Make in-county address changes locally. (These changes are added to the Suspense Queue and must be processed after FVRS becomes available to update the voter's address on the State system.)

Process voter registration applications, including suspense applications

Record a Voter Response

 

* Make address changes that move voters into or out of the county

* Perform FVRS lookups on voter records

Scanning and Indexing of Documents

All scanning activities.

Index images to voter records. However, images are not sent to FVRS until the connection is restored.

 

*   During an election, if FVRS goes down, you can still confirm a voter's registration on FVRS by using Voter Verify. This web service is particularly useful when helping move-in voters at the polls: you can verify theirFlorida registration and then allow them to go ahead and vote provisionally. (The actual address change in the voter's record will need to be made in the usual manner; it cannot be done via Voter Verify, which is simply a handy lookup tool.)

Voter Verify information for voter registration is up-to-date within two hours of a change for all counties using Voter Focus, even when FVRS is offline. You will also have access to similar information from the counties not using Voter Focus, as we augment our data for those counties with information taken from the latest monthly statewide voter extract file provided by the State.