Handle Skipped Envelopes, Undeliverable Ballots, and Ballots Rejected by Relia-Vote
Certain returned ballot envelopes cannot be processed via the Return Ballots from Relia-Vote program, as described in How to Return Mail Ballots Processed by Relia-Vote. For these ballots, you must process the return using Vote By Mail > Return Ballots.
Ballot envelopes that must be processed by the Return Ballots program, rather than Return Ballots from Relia-Vote, include:
- Envelopes that were skipped by the Voter Focus user doing BlueCrest return ballot processing.
- Envelopes rejected by the Relia-Vote machine because their bar code was unreadable or the envelope was too crumpled to feed through the machine.
- Mail ballot packages returned by the Postal Service as Undeliverable Mail, but only if your county does not use Relia-Vote to capture images of returned ballot envelopes and index them to voter records (as described in How to Index Images of Undeliverable Mail-Ballot Envelopes). If your county does not use this feature, undeliverable ballots should be handled as described in How to Process an Undeliverable Mail Ballot.
Even though these ballots are returned via the Return Ballots program, their disposition is still sent to the Relia-Vote system. This allows a mail ballot return to be reversed and then re-returned with a new disposition.
Ballots that were emailed or faxed to UOCAVA voters, and which were returned by email, fax, or regular mail, are another type of mail ballot that cannot be returned through the Relia-Vote system. These ballots also must be return processed using the Return Ballots program. Voter Focus does not send their disposition to Relia-Vote, because Relia-Vote has no record of these emailed/faxed ballots being sent out.
For instructions on returning ballots via the Return Ballots program, see How to Record the Return of Mail Ballots.
