Process a Vote-By-Mail Request from an FPCA Applicant

The Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) is a form provided by federal law to permit uniformed services members and merchant marines, their dependents, and U.S. citizens living abroad to register and to vote-by-mail in their home county.

Voters who apply using the FPCA form are eligible to receive mail ballots for all elections held from the date of the request through the calendar year of the next regularly scheduled general election.

  • An upcoming general election is not considered the next general election if the all elections request is submitted after 5:00 pm of the 6th day prior to the upcoming election date.
  • The voter's FPCA Applicant status does not remain in their voter registration record should they change their residence to another county. If the voter wants to maintain FPCA status, they will need to submit another FPCA form to the elections office in their new county.
  • The FPCA Applicant status reverts to a blank status when the FPCA request expires at the end of the calendar year.
Note: If a voter previously made an FPCA request, processing undeliverable mail with no change of address or an out-of-state address automatically triggers the cancellation of any outstanding Vote-By-Mail Requests for future elections (unless a ballot has already been delivered), sets the expiration date of the all-elections/FPCA request to today's date, and schedules the voter for a Canceled Requests Notice.
  1. Go to VOTER REGISTRATION > Voter Maintenance and do an FVRS Search to determine if the voter is currently registered.

    2. If the applicant is already registered in your county, open their record, and on the Maint tab:

    1. Verify that the voter's status is Active or Inactive.
      2. Note: Recording a Vote-By-Mail Request for an Inactive voter automatically changes their status to Active with a reason code of Reinstate because AB request.
    2. Verify the date of birth on the FPCA form with the date in the voter's record.
    3. If the voter has provided a change of residence address, see Change a Mail-Ballot Voter's Residential Address. Changes to the voter's residence address must be done before any ballots are issued; otherwise the voter might not receive the correct ballot style.
    4. Continue with step 2.

      5. If the applicant is a new voter in your county, perform the usual registration procedures, being sure to select the FPCA check box on the online application form. This option automatically sets the applicant as an FPCA voter. Then set the FPCA form aside until the voter's status changes from Pending to Active. When the voter becomes Active, continue with step 2.

      If the applicant is a new voter, but their permanent residence is in another Florida county, process the application portion of the FPCA form, but arrange to send the form to the voter's home county for processing of the Vote-By-Mail portion. Vote-By-Mail Requests can be set up only by the voter's home county, so voter registration is all you will be able to do for out-of-county FPCA applicants.

  2. On the voter's record and click the Vote-By-Mailtab.
  3. Use the Comment field for any office remarks or notes about voter preferences. Should you need more space than the 25 characters provided, type See Communication Log in the Comment field, click Office Note, and make an office note.
  4. If the voter indicated they are a member of the uniformed services or merchant machine, select the Military check box.
  5. If the voter indicated they are a dependent of a uniformed services member or merchant marine, check the Mil Dep box. The FPCA form provides no field specifically for military dependents, so you won't be able to determine this unless the voter has written it on somewhere on the form. Getting this field right is not critical for the FPCA applicant.
  6. If the voter has provided an email address, enter it in the E-Mail field.
  7. If the voter has provided a current or forwarding address in the FPCA form's Where to Send My Voting Materials section, click Vote-By-Mail Address, and record the address in the Default Mailing Address area of the Vote-By-Mail Addresses dialog.

Florida law requires that ballots be mailed to overseas voters at least 45 days prior to an election. To ensure that Voter Focus properly identifies a voter as being in the overseas category, the voter's address for mail ballots must contain either an APO/DPO/FPO address in the City field or a country name in the Country field. See Addresses for Overseas Voters for more information.

  1. Click Federal Post Card App and fill out the Vote-By-Mail Request dialog.

When you return to the Vote-By-Mailtab, notice that the value in the Vote-By-Mail Status field is FPCA Applicant.

Also observe that the note Requested All Elections through <expiration date> is displayed at the bottom of the dialog.

If ballot styles for a requested election have not yet been created or assigned to precincts (or the federal election style for Fed Elections Only voters has not been designated), you will see XXX in the Style column for the request. When the Deliver Ballots runs are performed (including runs that create export files for Pitney Bowes Relia-Vote and external mailing houses), the system will evaluate the voter's status, party, and precinct to determine their eligibility and ballot style. At that time, the XXX placeholder will be replaced by the appropriate ballot style for the voter.

The voter now has Vote-By-Mail Requests for all elections that are currently scheduled, except for those occurring after the calendar year of the second general election and those for which the voter is not eligible to vote. But what about elections that will be scheduled after the FPCA request has been entered? Before you generate labels or envelopes for an election, Voter Focus will check that all eligible all-elections and FPCA voters are scheduled to receive mail ballots for the election. If not, Voter Focus will ask you to run the Generate All Elections/FPCA Requests program, which will set up those requests.

When creating or maintaining an FPCA request, you cannot deselect an election. FPCA voters receive ballots for all elections for which they are eligible.