Last Update: March 19, 2015 |
About
This topic gives an overview of how Voter Focus schedules and prints documents to be mailed or emailed to voters and applicants for voter registration.
A notice is a document—a form, letter, mailing label, or other printed or emailed document—that has a defined document specification in Voter Focus and can be scheduled in the system for printing by elections officials. Notices are typically scheduled by the county system or by FVRS in response to some action against a voter's record. For example, recording a residential address change automatically schedules of a voter information card for the voter. Notices can also be scheduled by individual users.
Scheduled notices are listed in the Notices Queue, which has a facility for printing notices or for creating an export file for printing by an outside printing house.
There are many ways notices are scheduled into the Notices Queue. They can be scheduled automatically by the system as a result of some action (such as registering a new voter). Or they can be scheduled manually by the user. Virtually any notice in the system can be manually scheduled for a voter by selecting the notice on the Schedule Document Printing dialog in the voter's record.
Reasons why notices are scheduled.
The user displays the Notices Queue (PRINTING > Notices Queue) where notices scheduled for printing are listed along with the number of voters scheduled to receive the notice. The user can see all notices in the system or they can limit the list to the notices scheduled in connection with their operator name. From the Notices Queue, the user selects a notice and either prints it or exports it to a file. The user can control the number of voters' notices printed/exported in a run by restricting the run to specific precincts or limiting the total number of the run.
Once a notice is printed, the user then tells the program to update voter records indicating that the notice was sent to them. The program also marks the notice as Printed (in the internal Notices table) and removes the notice from the Notices Queue. Notices that were printed from the Notices Queue can be reprinted, if necessary. For example, if you print a notice that is a mail merge document and some pages in the middle of the run are spoiled, you can reprint the documents that were spoiled.
Not all notices must be scheduled in the Notices Queue. Some can be printed directly (that is, from a Voter Focus program outside the Notices Queue) in the following ways:
Voter information cards, voter labels (used for office filing purposes), and voter address labels can be scheduled in the Notices Queue, but an individual voter's card or label can also be printed immediately from the voter's record.
Election-worker notices are printed directly from programs accessed via the ELECTION WORKERS tab on the Console. They are never scheduled in the Notices Queue. Election worker notices include class invitation letters and work-schedule notices.
Notices of the document type Mail Merge Document or Label can be printed directly from the FlexRep program for voters meeting specified criteria.
Each notice must have a document specification in Document Maintenance. See How to Create a Document.