Inside Elections

Tens of thousands of Vote by Mail envelopes containing voted ballots are arriving at the Elections Office as the days count down to the Feb. 5 Presidential Primary. There were more than 29,600 of them as of this afternoon.

But thanks to even more improvements to our newfangled mail sorting technology, we’re getting them processed in a matter of minutes. So bring those Vote by Mail ballots on!

You may recall that in October we blogged about the Pitney Bowes Relia-Vote system at elections headquarters, our new 38-foot-long, lightening-fast setup that can process 24,000 Vote by Mail envelopes in an hour.

That was a massive improvement for a process that was largely done by hand, turning what used to take days into something that could be done in a matter of hours. But what we didn’t have set up in November – and is making the process even faster – is a handy feature that electronically captures those signatures hidden underneath the security flap on your Vote by Mail envelope. And it makes signature verification, required for all Vote by Mail ballots, happen in a flash.

“We found something that would take us six to eight hours a day takes 20 minutes, 40 minutes and we’re done. It’s a huge, huge improvement,” Elections Manager David Tom said. “It’s allowed us to be real-time processing these ballots.”

Read up on more background – and even see the video of it in action - but we’ll give you the quick and dirty recap of how the Relia-Vote system works.

Ballots envelopes arrive by mail and are sent a first time through the Olympus II single-tier sorter - which is part of the Relia-Vote system – to be counted and have their security flap sliced. The flap is fully removed by hand, and the envelopes are sent through again.

This time, now, an image of the hidden signature under the flap is digitally captured and a barcode on the envelope associated with that voter’s registration file scanned. On computer screens down the way, batches of envelope signatures pop up alongside their associated voter registration files. (Each voter registration file at the Elections Office contains a digital image of the signature made on a voter registration card.)

Four sets of signatures at a time populate a screen, making it super-fast for election folk to compare signatures, make sure all the other required information – such as the date and a voter’s address – is there, and click an ”Accept” or ”Reject” button.

In November, even with the ReliaVote system, signatures on envelopes still had to be checked one at a time. Election folk sat at computers with piles of envelopes and a personal barcode scanner that brought up voter registration files one by one. The process took hours; now it takes minutes.

If a signature is accepted, the envelope will be held until Friday, when we can, under law, begin opening envelopes and processing ballots. Envelopes will go back through the Olympus II one more time to be sliced open and sorted by precinct and ballot type. If a signature is rejected, the voter will be notified and asked to correct the deficiency before we can process their ballot.

More than 151,300 voters have requested a Vote by Mail ballot for the Feb. 5 Presidential Primary so far. So that means we’re expecting a heck of a lot more ballots to start showing up. We’ll take this opportunity to note that the deadline to make a request via fax, mail or online is Tuesday (after that, requests will have to be made in person).

This is a 77 percent increase over the Presidential Primary in 2004, when we had just 85,556 voters signed up to Vote by Mail.  

“They’ve been coming in fast and furious the last few days,” Tom said of Vote by Mail ballot envelopes. “But we’re ready to handle that.”