US 2008/0173714 A1Published application

Inline mail validation

AssigneeBowe Bell + Howell Company

InventorsChristopher J. Kite, George Mavelil Varghese, Arkadiusz Nieckarz, William A. Grady, Michelle R. Archer

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Abstract

Each respective mail item in a received batch of items is read to acquire information, which enables a plurality of verifications with regard to authenticity of the respective mail item. In a vote-by-mail example, one or more features are validated for authenticity in relation to the election, and one or more features are validated for authenticity in relation to a voter. The verifications in relation to a voter may involve detection of a signature and verification of the authenticity of the signature. The items are sorted according to the verification results and may be sorted based on other criteria. The methods, systems and software disclosed herein enable such verifications and sorting, in a single pass through a sorting system.

Claims33

Dependent claims

A single-pass method of authenticating and sorting mail items of a received batch of mail items, comprising steps of:

in one pass through a sorter system, reading each respective mail item in the received batch to acquire data including:
(a) mail item verification information;
and
(b) a representation of a portion of the respective mail item expected to contain a signature of a respective sender;
in the one pass through the sorter system, for each respective mail item in the received batch:
(1) determining whether or not the respective mail item is authentic, by determining whether or not the mail item verification information satisfies criteria for an authentic mail item;
and
(2) determining whether or not an authentic signature is present on the respective mail item, by:
(i) comparing the representation of the portion of the respective mail item expected to contain the signature to a prestored representation of a signature of the respective sender, and
(ii) determining from the comparison whether or not the representation of the portion of the respective mail item sufficiently matches the prestored representation of the signature of the respective sender;
in the one pass through the sorter system, sorting each mail item in the batch determined to be authentic and for which it is determined that an authentic signature is present, into at least one sort bin designated for authenticated mail items;
and
in the one pass through the sorter system, sorting each mail item in the batch determined to not be authentic or for which it is determined that an authentic signature is absent, into at least one sort bin designated for mail items that have not been successfully authenticated.

10 more elements

A single-pass method of processing return envelopes for a batch of mail items potentially containing ballots for a vote-by-mail election, the method comprising steps of:

during a single pass through a sorter system, determining from a first sensed characteristic of each respective one of the mail items of the batch whether or not the respective mail item exhibits a valid relationship to the election;
during the pass through the sorter system, determining from a second characteristic of each respective one of the mail items of the batch whether or not the respective mail item exhibits a valid relationship to a voter registered to vote in the election;
during the pass through the sorter system, sorting mail items of the batch determined to not exhibit the valid relationship to the election into a designated bin;
during the pass through the sorter system, sorting mail items of the batch determined to exhibit the valid relationship to the election but not exhibit the valid relationship to a voter registered to vote in the election, into a bin designated for further validation processing;
and
during the pass through the sorter system, sorting mail items of the batch determined to exhibit both the valid relationship to the election and the valid relationship to a voter registered to vote in the election into at least one bin designated for further election processing of validated mail items.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.