Referral of Returned Mail Ballots

During the ballot-return process, if a ballot cannot be accepted and therefore must be referred to the Canvassing Board, you should select a value in the Referral Reason field on the Return Ballots dialog and click Refer Return.

The values in the Referral Reason field are maintained by the county in VOTER FOCUS ADMIN > System Codes > Vote-By-Mail Referral Reasons. Each referral reason must have a notice selected in Name of document that is sent to the voter. This notice will be scheduled if a ballot is referred for that reason. For example, you might set up the referral reason Returned Late to schedule an absentee referral notice to the voter.

To print the scheduled letters, go to PRINTING > Notices Queue, select the notice called Absentee Reject Letter, and select the election you want to run the letters for. (The notice might have a different name in your system, but the Notice Type is always 19.) If referrals also scheduled a signature affidavit notice, these notices will be listed separately from the absentee referral notices, under the name Signature Affidavit for Unsigned Mail Ballot. (See Referrals because the Ballot Is Not Signed, below.)

Voter Focus prints a Canvassing Referral Sheet for any ballot referred because the signatures did not match. The sheet prints to your default printer and can be attached to the mail ballot before being set aside for the Canvassing Board's review. Depending on how your Voter Focus system is optioned, a Canvassing Referral Sheet can also be printed for all other referral reasons except Returned Undeliverable and Temporarily Away/Forwarding Address. (The option controlling this is VOTER FOCUS ADMIN > System Options > Vote By Mail > Print Canvassing Referral Sheet for All Reasons.) If you want a sheet for a voter whose referral reason is Returned Undeliverable or Temporarily Away/Forwarding Address, you can print it using the Reprint Referral Sheet button on the Return Ballots dialog.

If a mail ballot package is returned as undeliverable by the postal service, see Mail Ballots that are Returned as Undeliverable, below, for instructions.

Unless their ballot is returned undeliverable, voters whose ballots are referred are still credited for voting. But you should be aware that this means the totals of Vote-By-Mail voters will not match tabulation totals. Vote-By-Mail return totals are shown on the report Absentee Totals for an Election.

Referred mail ballots might be reinstated by the Canvassing Board. Reinstatements should be recorded on the Mail-Ballot Adjustments dialog.

Voter Focus can be optioned to effectively suspend referred returns until they have been reviewed. See Review Referred Mail Ballots for more information.

Voters who fail to sign their ballot have the ability to cure the ballot by delivering a signature affidavit and an acceptable form of ID to the Supervisor no later than 5 p.m. on the Thursday following Election Day. If the county wants to send a notice to voters advising them of this right, Voter Focus can be set up to schedule a signature affidavit notice along with the Vote-By-Mail referral notice.

Here's how it works: Should an unsigned ballot be return processed prior to the election date with a referral reason designated as a No Signature reason, the voter will be scheduled for:

  • The notice specified in VOTER FOCUS ADMIN > System Codes > Vote-By-Mail Referral Reasons > Name of document that is sent to the voter. This is typically a Vote-By-Mail referral letter stating the reason for the referral.
  • The notice Signature Affidavit for Unsigned Mail Ballot. The notice is not scheduled if the ballot is returned on or after election day, because the deadline for curing the ballot will have passed. (If your county does not send this notice, it will still be scheduled, but will not be printable as there is no document set up for it). The signature affidavit should be mailed to the voter immediately, so they have the opportunity to cure their ballot.

Should the referral be reversed prior to election day, either by a management review of referred ballots or by a canvassing board reinstatement, the Vote-By-Mail referral notice and signature affidavit notice will be unscheduled by the system.

Note: VR Tower and MAIS counties When a voter does a mail ballot status lookup on the web, the status will indicate if the voter has returned a ballot with no signature.

To ensure that these notices are scheduled and also that referrals due to no signature are properly reported in the Absentee Ballot Request Information File sent daily to the State, the option “No Signature” Reason must be selected for each referral reason where there was no signature. To do this, go to VOTER FOCUS ADMIN > System Codes > Vote-By-Mail Referral Reasons. For each referral reason where there was no signature (and a signature affidavit notice should go out, if your county does this), select “No Signature” Reason.

If your county wants to send out a signature affidavit notice, take these steps to set up the notice.

  1. Create a Microsoft Word mail merge document to serve as the signature affidavit notice. (The text of the affidavit is in statute.) Save the document in the \Docs folder in \Vr6Sharedbinaries.
  2. Go to PRINTING > Document Maintenance and highlight the notice Signature Affidavit for Unsigned Mail Ballot in the list of documents. Then click Select Document.
  3. On the Document Maintenance dialog, under Mail Merge Options, browse to the \Docs folder and select the Word document you created in step 1. Click Save.
  4. If you have not already done so, go to VOTER FOCUS ADMIN > System Codes > Vote-By-Mail Referral Reasons. For each referral reason where a signature affidavit notice should go out, select the option “No Signature” Reason.

The steps to create a report with this information depends on how your county processes a ballot after receiving an affidavit:

  • If you reinstate the ballot (either by a management review of referred ballots or by a canvassing board reinstatement), run the report Returned Absentee Ballots by Batch Number and look at the ERR section. The text Reinstated will be next to those returns. You can export the report and get those group of voters. Or you can run the Export of Returned Absentee Ballots by Batch Number and look in the Reinstated Flag column of the exported file.
  • If you reverse the return of the ballot and accept it as a normal return, you will need to run two reports and compare them.
    • For the first report, go to PRINTING > Notice Queue > Show all operators notices > Reports > Signature Affidavit for Unsigned Mail Ballot. Then select Notices Printed > Print Report and specify a date range from the date the first notice went out to today's date. The resulting List of Notices Printed will list of the voters to whom the notice was sent.
    • For the second report, go to REPORTING > Flexible Reports > Voter List > Vote By Mail/Early Voting Dates and Options > Vote-By-Mail Ballots Cast. The resulting report will give you all the voters whose returned ballots were accepted.

Referral Reason: Signature Different From File

When a ballot is referred for different signatures, three documents are scheduled.

  • Signature Difference Letter—Hard coded with referral reason code S.
  • Signature Update Letter—Scheduled automatically.
  • Signature Affidavit for Unsigned Mail Ballot - Notice Type 919—Scheduled when the option "No Signature" Reason is enabled for any referral reason in System Codes.

A general practice is for counties to print the Signature Update Letter immediately and mail it to the voter. Next, they will print the Reject Letter after the Canvassing Board completes their review.

The Signature Affidavit for Unsigned Mail Ballot document may be needed for multiple reasons.

If a mail ballot package is returned as undeliverable by the postal service, you should refer the return with the reason Returned Undeliverable. This will automatically schedule the following actions by the Voting History Update run:

  • Schedules the voter to receive a Final Notice requesting confirmation of their residence and mailing addresses.
  • Cancels any mail ballot requests for upcoming elections, except for cases where the mail ballot for an upcoming election has already been issued to the voter. Schedules a Cancelled Requests Notice to be sent to the voter.
  • If the voter's Vote-By-Mail status is Permanent, removes this status.
  • If the voter has an outstanding all-elections or FPCA request, cancels the request as of yesterday's date.

Voter Focus unschedules the Final Notice if new voting activity is recorded for:

  • 2nd/3rd , Provisional, Pickup, or All Elections ballot
  • Early Voting, Election Day, or Non-Register History vote

The remaining actions listed above are only unscheduled when, prior to the Voting History Update run, the voter is mailed and returns a 2nd/3rd mail ballot.

Counties using
Pitney Bowes Relia-Vote

You have the option of capturing an image of the returned envelope and storing the image with the voter's record. For more information, see Index Images of Undeliverable Mail Ballot Envelopes for instructions.

If a mail ballot package is returned as undeliverable by the postal service, but the package indicates that the voter is temporarily away from the address, you should refer the return with the reason Temporarily Away/Forwarding Address. Voter Focus converts Temporarily Away/Forwarding Address to the referral reason Returned Undeliverable but does not perform any of the processing described above for returned undeliverable ballots. It will instead schedule the voter for the notice defined for this referral reason in VOTER FOCUS ADMIN > System Codes > Vote-By-Mail Referral Reasons > Notice Sent to Voter.

The Canvassing Referral Sheet will show Temporarily Away/Forwarding Address as the referral reason. On reports, the ballot will be included in the Returned Undeliverable category and in voter records it will show as undeliverable. To find voters whose ballots were returned due to the reason Temporarily Away/Forwarding Address, run the report Ballots Returned Temporarily Away.

If a mail ballot package is returned as undeliverable by the postal service, and the package contains a change-of-address notice, you should refer the return with the reason Temporarily Away/Forwarding Address. Then process the package as undeliverable mail with a third-party address change.