Author: Johnnie McLean
SBOE is looking to enhance the verification of voters by ensuring that a voter signature is available on every SEIMS voter record. This can further allow election officials the ability to see that registrants who participate in elections and election activities are better verified.
The recent Voter Signature Survey and various reports we have available have made it clear we have a lot to do to achieve the goal of a signature on every voter SEIMS record. Statewide, 58 percent of SEIMS voter records have a clipped signature. That means that over 2.5 million signatures would need to be acquired from registrant documents.
- Effective immediately, all counties must ensure that every newly provided voter registration document with a signature is saved into SEIMS with the signature clipped. This includes voter registration applications, change of address documents, address confirmation cards, NCOA confirmation cards, etc. Within the year, county boards will also be able to scan and link other documents to voter records, like absentee request forms or ATV forms.
- In addition, counties must also develop and implement a plan to scan legacy voter registration records for those active and inactive voters who do not already have a clipped signature in SEIMS. Your plan must be reported to your area DET by May 18, 2011. We have prepared a report for each county that lists the active and inactive registered voters in the county with no clipped signature in SEIMS.
Many counties have already started scanning all their legacy voter documents into SEIMS. For those counties who have not started, we acknowledge that this will be an ambitious and tedious process. However, the ability to have full electronic access to all voters’ records will surely enhance your ability to verify voter signatures for absentee, petition checking, and possibly even identification purposes. Also, county boards may be able to save on storage space and/or costs once voter registration records are scanned into SEIMS.
SBOE is aggressively looking at ways to assist counties in this project. Working with other agencies that have electronic signatures in other formats that can be imported into SEIMS and developing an easy scanning and clipping process in Voter View are some ideas we are looking at right now. Unfortunately, these options are in the infancy stage, so county boards must begin the process of manually scanning legacy voter registration documents now.
If you have any questions regarding this policy or need to discuss the scanning process, please contact either Veronica Degraffenreid or Gerry Smith. We thank you for your cooperation and commitment.
Attachments [below]:
- Scanning & Signature Capture Process
- Questions & Answers Document
Scanning and Signature Capture Process
This Process is for scanning and processing signatures for existing voter documents in Voter View.
- Obtain list of voters with no signatures.
- Gather documents for each voter to be scanned.
- In Voter View, search for voter.
- Click the Attachments (Paperclip) icon.
- Click the New Attachment button.
- Uncheck the “Print Header Page” checkbox. Filing will be done as a miscellaneous batch for day.
- Select the Document Type.
- Place the voter document(s) to be scanned into the Scanner ADF.
- Set the Scan Count for the number of document(s).
- Click Scan Document.
- For Lexmark scanners, follow onscreen instructions to complete scan.
- When image appears, verify and click Accept Documents(s).
- Click Attach to Voter and Close window.
- From the Attachment List, select the Attachment just scanned and click Open.
- With mouse pointer, Clip Voter Signature.
- Click Save Signature button and Close.
- Repeat with next Voter.
- For filing of original document, keep in sequential order of scanning and file as a miscellaneous batch for the day. The filing number on the Voter View record will assist with retrieval, if needed.
Signature Scanning Q&A
- Which document (s) should be scanned for each voter?
- For this project, the most current voter registration document is all that is needed for the most current signature. If you want to include other documents, you may do so.
- Can we scan ALL the documents for a voter as a single batch?
- That could be done as long as the documents are the same size. You could make 8½ X 11 copies of all the documents (2 or 3 per page if you can) and scan as a Voter Change / Update or Miscellaneous document with the number of pages you are scanning. Try to keep the most current documents first, so the signature can easily be clipped.
- What do we do if a voter signed as “Mrs. John Doe”?
- If you don’t have a signed original in the voter’s actual name, then make a copy of the application and set it aside. Send the voter a letter along with a voter registration application and ask the voter to sign her full name.
- What do we do with the scanned documents for re‐filing?
- If you maintain a sequential order of your scanned documents, they can be filed as a miscellaneous batch in the back of the days filing. This batch could also be kept separate from the regular filing for the day as perhaps a “Legacy Scanning “ file by date.
- What about the older Voter registration type documents not in SEIMS?
- There are a couple of things that can be done. Put them on a copier and make an 8½ X 11 size and scan as a Voter Change / Update or Miscellaneous document. Or, the specific document type with dimensions can be created in SEIMS as needed.
- Should we print a Batch Header for each scan?
- That should NOT be necessary. The filing number created on each attachment record will provide the date and number document for the attachment. If you keep the scanned documents in order of scan, they can all be filed as a single “999” Batch for the day and the filing number will help retrieve the original. This batch could be kept separate from the regular filing for the day as perhaps a “Legacy Scanning “file.
- How can I identify the voters without a clipped signature?
- The list of voters is on the FTP site at the address listed on the memo. The list contains the voters’ name, VRN and date of birth.
↓ County Boards Must Scan All Legacy Voter Registration Documents: Numbered Memo 2011-02 (PDF)