Process a Duplicate Registration Reported by FVRS

The FVRS system conducts comparisons of voter registration records, looking for records that might be duplicates for the same voter. If a match is found, a duplicate match notice appears in the Eligibility Match Queue. (Duplicate matches are indicated by the Type of Duplicate.) It is the Supervisor's responsibility to review the match and attempt to resolve it.

It depends on the registration dates of the records involved:  did they occur before or after the implementation of FVRS on Jan. 1, 2006?

  • If at least one of the match records has a registration date of 2006 or later, FVRS sends the duplicate match to the county having the newer registration record (that is, the record with the later registration date). The assumption is that the newer record is the duplicate and should therefore be removed.

  • If both records have a registration date prior to 2006, FVRS sends the duplicate match to the county with the older registration date. The assumption in this case is that the older record is rendered obsolete by the newer one.

Prior to Jan, 1, 2006, there was no statewide voter registration system, so voters relocating across county lines couldn't move their registration record to their new county. Instead, they registered as a new voter in their new county. The new county was expected to send a cancellation letter to the old county, but if for some reason the cancellation didn't happen, the older record remained on the books in the voter's old county and was absorbed into FVRS when the statewide system came online.

It's a simple matter to resolve a duplicate match if you decide that the two match records belong to two different voters. Just click Invalid Match on the FVRS Duplicate Match dialog, and the match is automatically removed from the Eligibility Match Queue.

Resolution of a duplicate match tends to be more complicated when both records belong to the same voter. The FVRS Duplicate Match dialog has a Process as Duplicate button that renders the duplicate record Ineligible and removes the match from the Eligibility Match Queue. But to resolve most matches, adjustments are required to the surviving record. For example, any voting history from the duplicate record must be copied to the surviving record. The duplicate record might also contain updates to the voter's data that should be preserved. Updates might include a mailing address, change in military status, or party change.

Before updating the surviving record or processing the match as a duplicate, it might be necessary to move the surviving record into your county.

Depending on the circumstances, you might need to contact the voter to determine where they currently reside. (To help with this, the FVRS Duplicate Match dialog has a button to schedule an address confirmation request for the voter.)

Here are some possible scenarios that might be the cause of duplicate registrations, and the steps you might take to resolve the matches.

In cases where both records have a registration date prior to 2006, the county receiving the match should check its record (the older record) for voting history items and pass them along to the county with the newer record. This must be done off-system, either by mail, fax, or email. The county with the newer record should then add these items to the record by clicking History Details on the Elections tab to open the dialog for making voting history changes.

In this situation, two counties hold a record for the voter, but because the older record contains more recent voting history than the newer record, it isn't clear where the voter resides. We would recommend you first attempt to contact the voter and verify their current address. Once residency is established, any voting history from the non-resident county should be copied to the record held by the voter's current county. If the voter lives in the county with the newer record, the county receiving the match (that is, the county with the older record) should send the voting history data to the county with the newer record and then do a Process as Duplicate to remove the older record. But if the voter lives in the county with the older record, that county should:

  1. Do a Process as Duplicate to remove the match record from their Eligibility Match Queue.

  2. Move the newer record into their county.

  3. Copy the voting history from the older (now Ineligible) record to the newer record. To do this, open both records and display the Elections tabs. Then follow the instructions in How to Correct Mistakes in a Voter's Voting History to update the new record with the voting history from each election listed in the old record. There's no automatic way to copy the history. You'll need to transcribe the information from the old record to the new one.

This might happen if the voter submitted an application with an address change, but your office didn't see that they were already registered and created a duplicate record for the voter. In this case, the older record will survive, so you should copy any recent data from the newer record to the older one:

  • On the new record's Elections tab, check for voting history not recorded in the older record and transcribe any voting activity to the same tab on the older record. (Click History Details to open the dialog for making voting history changes.) See How to Correct Mistakes in a Voter's Voting History for instructions on changing a voter's voting history.

  • Compare the vital information on both records and verify that all fields have the same data. Such information includes the voter's party, military status, and mailing address. If the newer record has different information in these fields, copy the newer data to the older record, so that the older record will have the most recent information.

Other tasks you might consider, depending on your county's procedures:

If your county's record has the newer registration date, you will get the duplicate match. A likely cause of the duplicate is the voter moved from the other county to your county but was processed by your county as a new Florida voter rather than as a move-in. (You could confirm this by comparing the signature clip in both records.)

If the voter is the same, your first step after processing the duplicate in the Eligibility Match Queue is to move the older record into your county. (To do this, go to VOTER REGISTRATION > Application Forms and access the voter's application via the Application Search button. Then change their residential address to the local address shown in the newer record.)

Once the older record is local, you can then copy any voting history and updates to vital information from the newer record into the older record as described above in Both Match Records Are Local to Your County.

To process a duplicate match:

  1. Go to VOTER REGISTRATION > Eligibility Match Queue.
  2. In the queue, you probably see match records of several different types, including duplicates, which are indicated by Duplicate in the Type column. To lump the duplicate records together for easier viewing, click the heading in the Type column. This sorts the list by type. You can then scroll down to see all duplicate matches.

  1. Double-click a duplicate match to display the Eligibility Maint tab of the voter's record. Then, in the list of eligibility records for the voter, click the duplicate match to open the FVRS Duplicate Match dialog. Here you can see the county's information for the voter (Our Data) side-by-side with the duplicate data from the other county where the voter is registered (Other County Data). The matching data is highlighted in green, so that you can easily compare the two.
Note: If both records are in your county, the heading will still be Other County Data.

  1. Examine the matching data and determine, if you can, whether the voter registered in the other county is the same person as your voter. Then, based on your findings, click one of the buttons in the Action Choices box to conclude the duplicate process for this voter:

Invalid Match

Select this option when you are sure the two records belong to different voters or there are some similarities between the two records but not enough for you to confirm that they belong to the same person.

The match record will be recorded in FVRS as invalid and it will be removed from the Eligibility Match Queue. On the voter's Eligibility Maint tab, the match record's status will be changed to DNP (do not process) and the record will be disabled to indicate that processing is finalized.

Process as Duplicate

Select this option when you are certain that to two records belong to the same voter.

On the voter's Eligibility Maint tab, the match record's status will be changed to REM (Ineligible) and the record will be disabled to indicate it has been processed. The voter's Comms tab will show an office note indicating that the record has been removed. The duplicate record's status will be changed to H(P) Office Duplicate and the match will be removed from the Eligibility Match Queue. No notice is scheduled for the voter in this scenario.

Note that any voting history associated with the duplicate record is not automatically transferred to the retained record. This will need to be done manually as described above.

Schedule Addr Conf Req

Selecting this option schedules the voter for an address confirmation request in the Notices Queue. The notice goes to the voter's mailing address in your county. The record will remain in the Eligibility Match Queue with the status of LTR (letter).
  1. You will be returned to the voter's Eligibility Maint tab. To go to the next voter in the Eligibility Match Queue, click on the toolbar: