Last Updated: 12/12/2023

Process Undeliverable Mail and Third-Party Address Changes

This topic describes how to process undeliverable postal items and notices of a voter address change from third-party agencies.

Important:

For Undeliverable Mail Ballots—

Do not process an undeliverable Vote-By-Mail ballot as undeliverable mail unless the package contains a change-of-address notice from the Postal Service.
For undeliverable ballots without a third-party address change, follow the instructions in Process an Undeliverable Vote-By-Mail Ballot.
For ballots with an address change, refer the return as described in Process an Undeliverable Vote-By-Mail Ballot. Then, process the package as undeliverable mail with a third-party address change, as described below.

When the Postal Service is unable to deliver mail (other than mail ballots) to a voter and returns it to your office, it should be processed as undeliverable mail. In addition to undeliverable postal items, the following items should also be processed as undeliverable mail:

Jury notices with changes of address
Changes of address from an NCOA vendor that your county is not processing using the automated NCOA processing facility provided in Voter Focus.
HSMV lists of voters who have surrendered their Florida driver license in another state and have provided a new out-of-state address.

These items, plus undeliverable mail that includes a change-of-address notice, fall into the category of third-party address changes. Depending on the type of address change (residential or mailing, in-county, or out-of-county) the proper notice will be scheduled to be sent to the voter requesting confirmation of the address change. A log is posted to the voter's audit noting the address change and the notice(s) scheduled.

The processing of undeliverable mail for which there is no change of address schedules the voter to receive a Final Notice and adds an entry to their audit log that the notice is scheduled. When the notice is sent, a record of that event is added to the Comms tab in the voter's record. Should a Final Notice be returned as undeliverable, no further communications are scheduled for the voter, and the voter will be placed in the queue of voters who are ready to be made Inactive. Should the voter subsequently request a mail ballot or cast a ballot during an election, Voter Focus will remove them from the Inactive queue.

If a voter previously made an all-elections or FPCA Vote-By-Mail request, processing undeliverable mail with no change of address or an out-of-state address automatically triggers the cancellation of any outstanding Vote-By-Mail requests for future elections (unless a ballot has already been delivered) and sets the expiration date of the all-elections/FPCA request to today's date. The process also schedules a Cancelled Requests Notice to be sent to the voter.

To process undeliverable mail or a third-party address change:

Go to VOTER REGISTRATION > Record Undeliverable Mail.
Do one of the following:
- Scan First enabled—On the Process Undeliverable Mail dialog, double-click on the desired row from the Images grid. The Find a Voter and Batch Images dialogs open. You can clip the signature area of the image, if one exists, to index a copy of the voter's signature. Otherwise, continue to the next step.
- Scan First disabled—On the Voter Management dialog, accept today's date or enter an earlier date when the mail (or jury notice) was returned to your office and click OK. (The Comms tab in the voter's record will show this date in the Date column.) The Find a Voter dialog opens.
If you are working with a bar code wand, wand the bar code to open the voter’s record; otherwise, do a local search by name. The Undeliverable Mail dialog opens with the voter's information in the fields.

Check the date in the Last Activity Date field and determine if you have had activity from this voter since you received the mail or jury notice in the office. If the date in Last Activity Date is earlier than the date the item arrived in the office, continue with the next step.

If the date in the Last Activity Date field is later than the date the item arrived, do not process the item, because the voter has either contacted the elections office or voted since you received it. Click Close to complete the procedure.

If your county wants the note Address Update Required to appear with the voter's name on subsequent precinct registers (and EViD screens), select Change Status to "Address Update Required".
In the Mail Type box, select the type of item you are processing. You can toggle the list of options between Classic Mail Types and Voter Mail Types. The option Other Mail can be any item not covered by the other options, such as a sample ballot or a mail ballot. The selection in this box is sticky for this undeliverable mail session; once you select a mail type, it remains selected for the next voter unless you change it. This lets you quickly process a batch of similar items for different voters.

Note:

If the item is a combo card, select Address Change Notice as the mail type.
If the voter was previously sent a Notice of Potential Ineligibility, the notice will also be listed in the Mail Type box.

Click one of the following:
- No Address Change—If the undeliverable item has no change-of-address notice. You will see the message An Address Final Notice will be sent to the voter. Click OK to finish processing the item. You can now restart this procedure to process undeliverable mail for another voter.
- Forwarding Address—If the item shows a change of address for the voter. If the mail type you selected does not match with sent mail records in the system, a message displays.
Verify that you have the right voter and have selected the correct type of mail item. If the mail was truly sent without being recorded in the system, click OK to continue processing the undeliverable mail.
Voter doesn't have a mailing address:
If the voter doesn't have a mailing address, the Residence Address Entry dialog opens.
- Take a look at the forwarding address provided by the third-party agency, on the USPS form, NCOA report, or other document.
  - Forwarding address is valid and in-county—Enter it in the New Address fields and click OK. If the address validates against your streets table, Voter Focus changes the voter's residence address and schedules an Address Change notice and a Voter Information Card for the voter.
    Note: If the address doesn't validate against your local database, you will need to research why it doesn't and possibly contact the voter.
    Click OK to return to the Process Undeliverable Mail (using Scan First) or Find a Voter (not using Scan First) dialog and process another voter.
  - Forwarding address isn't a valid local residence address (a PO box, an out-of-state address, or a local business address)—Enter the address and click Update as Mailing. (You can enter post-office boxes entirely in the Name field.)
  - Forwarding address is in another Florida county—Enter it in the New Address fields and click OK. If the address validates against FVRS, the Suspense County Selection dialog opens with the voter's new county preselected in the Suspend Record to field. Enter any remarks about the address change in the New Comments field and click OK to suspend the address change to the voter's new county.
    Note: If the address doesn't validate against FVRS and you verified the address is correct, click Yes to the Do you wish to suspend the address even though it doesn't validate? message and proceed with suspension to the other county. It's possible that the address is new and hasn't been entered in FVRS. If the other county cannot resolve the address, they can resuspend the address change back to your county. At that point, you can contact the voter to resolve the issue.
    Click OK to return to the Process Undeliverable Mail (using Scan First) or Find a Voter (not using Scan First) dialog and process another voter.
Voter has a mailing address:
If the voter has a mailing address, the Enter Forwarding Address dialog opens.
- Forwarding address is the same as the voter's residence address—Do not enter the forwarding address in the New Mailing Address fields. Just select New Address Matches Residence and click OK. Voter Focus removes the mailing address from the voter's record.
Click OK to return to the Process Undeliverable Mail (using Scan First) or Find a Voter (not using Scan First) dialog and process another voter.
- Forwarding address is different from the voter's residence address—Enter the address in the New Mailing Address fields and click OK. Voter Focus updates the mailing address in the voter's record and, if the option is enabled in System Options, schedules an Address Confirmation Request.
Click OK to return to the Process Undeliverable Mail (using Scan First) or Find a Voter (not using Scan First) dialog and process another voter.
When you finish recording undeliverable mail, go to Printing > Notices Queue to print the notices. For mail merge documents, mailing labels may also be printed.

You can view details about sent notices and temporary forwarding addresses from the Audit and Comms tabs in voter records.

Undeliverable mail processed by each user is included in the totals in the Operator Additions and Changes report.