Process an Undeliverable Vote-By-Mail Ballot

When the postal service returns a mail ballot as undeliverable to the voter, you'll need to record this return in Vote By Mail > Return Ballots. You should not make any changes to the voter's mail ballot request, but you will see the return in the voter's record on the Vote-By-Mail tab and the Absentee Activity report will show that the ballot was returned as undeliverable.

  1. Ensure that the election you want is in focus.
  2. Go to Vote By Mail > Return Ballots.
  3. On the Return Ballots Batch Header dialog:
    1. Enter the date the ballot was returned to your office.
    2. In the Return Batch field, enter the next batch number in your sequence for returned absentee ballots for this election. Click Continue. When the message Opening new batch appears, click OK.
  4. When the Return Ballots dialog appears, enter the ballot number or click and locate the voter.
  5. In the Referral Reason field, select one of these reasons, based on the notice indicated by the Postal Service:

Returned Undeliverable

or

Temporarily Away/Forwarding Address

  1. Click Refer Return. Then click Yes to confirm the transaction.

If your Voter Focus system is set to print a Canvassing Referral Sheet for all referral reasons, and you want a sheet for this voter, you can print it using the Reprint Referral Sheet button on the Return Ballots dialog. (Canvassing Referral Sheets are not printed automatically for ballots referred due to the reasons Returned Undeliverable and Temporarily Away/Forwarding Address.)

In the voter's record, the request status will be Ballot Rtnd Undeliverable and in the Absentee Activity Dump you will see the code BRU in the Chg Type column for the transaction.

On the report Absentee Totals for an Election, the totals under Ballots Returned are not incremented by this ballot return.

If the referral reason is Returned Undeliverable, the Return Ballots program schedules the following actions:

  • If the ballot was sent to the voter's residence or mailing address, schedules the voter to receive a Final Notice requesting confirmation of their residence and mailing addresses. A Final Notice will not be scheduled if the ballot was sent to a default absentee address or a specific election address.
  • 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, and 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.
Note:  These actions are not taken for ballots whose referral reason is Temporarily Away/Forwarding Address.

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.

If a 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.