Set Up Ballot Styles for an Election

One of the first tasks to accomplish when setting up an election in Voter Focus is to create the ballot styles and assign them to precincts. You must complete this task before you can send out mail ballots or print a precinct register.

Note: If your county imports your ballot styles into Voter Focus from a third-party system used to print ballots, rather than entering the ballot styles manually, see Ballot-Printing Setup for ES&S Unity or Ballot-Printing Setup for Dominion GEMS for instructions on importing ballot styles from these systems.
  1. Ensure that the election you want to ballot styles for is the focused election. If not, click Change Election Status on the Console and select the election.
  2. Go to ELECTIONS > Maintain Election Settings > Ballot Styles > Set Up Ballot Styles.
  3. On the List of Ballot Styles dialog, click New Style.
  4. On the Enter New Ballot Style dialog, enter a name for the first (or next) ballot style.  
    5. Important: Do not include the underscore character in the name. This character is known to cause printing issues on multiple printer types.
  5. If the election is a primary, the Party drop-down list appears on the dialog. Select the party for which this ballot style is being created.
  6. When you have entered a ballot style name, click OK. The List of Ballot Styles dialog now shows the new name in the Ballot Style field.
  7. If the election is a primary, the Party field will be shown, with the party you selected in step 5. You can change the party here, if need be.
  8. In the Description field, enter a short description of the ballot style, if you want. This description appears in the report Absentee Ballots Issued by Ballot Style.
  9. In the Next Ballot Number field, we suggest you let the ballots start at 1 unless your county has a different procedure. You can change the starting number any time later in the election cycle, if necessary.
  10. If you are using Pitney Bowes Relia-Vote, in the Sequence n fields, enter values as needed.
  11. If the ballot style is to be used for federal-elections only voters (as described here), select the ballot style from the list in the Federal Election Style area. The federal elections only ballot style will be the same for all precincts. Selection of a ballot style that is already assigned to a precinct is not permitted.
  12. Create the next ballot style for the election, by repeating this procedure from step 3. Continue until all ballot styles for the election have been created.

When you have created all ballot styles for the election, go to ELECTIONS > Maintain Election Settings > Ballot Styles > Assign Ballots to Precincts. See Assign Ballot Styles to Precincts for further instructions.

 

Related Topics

For detailed information about setting up ballot styles, including recommended naming conventions and settings descriptions, see: