On November 8th and 12th, groups of AAUW members toured the Ballot Processing Center at 13401 Crossroads Pkwy in Industry. We saw the reception area where ballots are brought in from Drop Boxes and Post Offices by teams of election’s employees. Next, ballot envelopes are oriented to be read by the electronic signature reading machine. Any ballot which lacks a signature or for which the electronic scanner fails to get a match with the voter signature on file, is kicked out for manual processing. Trained employees visually compare the envelope signature with up to 4 of the voter’s signatures on file. If the match is questionable a third team of experts in signature analysis checks the signature for match. If no match is approved, then ballot is removed from processing.
If the signature is missing, then a ballot cure process is used to contact the voter to solicit a current signature. All means of contact are used, including phone, email and letter. The voter has until December 1 to submit their signature.
After the signature is approved, the envelopes are slit open. Ballots are removed by dozens of trained employees who inspect each ballot for stray marks, stains, or tears and save the ballots for counting. Those with errors or marks are sent to be remade by a team of workers who verify the accuracy of the remade ballot. Then they are sent to be counted. Ballots are scanned and tabulated by very rapid electronic machines. The counted ballots are then stored as are the ballot envelopes.
