AUTOMATED POSTAL VOTING SYSTEM AND METHOD
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Accused Products
Abstract
A voting indicium product including a human-readable portion to represent a unique vote identification element for a specific ballot choice by a specific voter. The voting indicium further including a bar-coded portion to represent the unique vote identification element for the specific ballot choice by the specific voter, the bar-coded portion encoding at least the unique vote identification element.
105 Citations
40 Claims
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1-20. -20. (canceled)
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21. A voting indicium product comprising:
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a substrate constructed to be affixed to a mail piece, the substrate having embodied thereon a human-readable portion representing a unique vote identification element, the unique vote identification element including encoded information corresponding to a specific ballot choice and a specific voter selecting the specific ballot choice; and a machine-readable portion representing a machine-readable form of the unique vote identification element, the machine-readable portion having encoded information including at least the unique vote identification element. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
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27. A method for counting ballots, the method comprising:
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providing a voting indicium affixed to a mail piece, the voting indicium including a machine readable portion having encoded information indicating a specific ballot choice associated with a specific voter registration number; placing the mail piece on a mail sorting apparatus; automatically reading the voting indicium using the mail sorting apparatus; and tabulating a vote indicated by the specific ballot choice. - View Dependent Claims (28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33)
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34. A voting indicium product comprising:
a substrate constructed to be affixed to a mail piece, the substrate having embodied thereon a machine-readable portion representing a machine-readable form of a unique vote identification element, the unique vote identification element including encoded information corresponding to a specific ballot choice and a specific voter selecting the specific ballot choice. - View Dependent Claims (35, 36, 37, 38, 39)
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40. A postal voting system comprising:
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a voter registration database adapted to store voter registration identification numbers each associated with a corresponding individual voter; a voted database adapted to store information indicating which individual voters, identified by respective voter registration identification numbers, have cast votes; a postal voting component coupled to the voter registration identification database, the voted database, and at least one mail sorting machine, the postal voting component including a processor; a votes cast database coupled to the postal voting component, wherein the postal voting component includes a computer readable medium having software instructions embodied thereon, the software instructions, when executed, cause the postal voting component processor to perform a series of functions including; generating unique postal voting indicia by accessing the voter registration database and ballot choice information, each of the indicia corresponding to a specific ballot choice associated with a specific voter registration identification number; automatically reading mail pieces using the at least one mail sorting machine to identify any mail pieces having at least one postal voting indicium affixed thereon; tabulating votes read from the mail pieces, a vote being indicated by the at least one postal voting indicium affixed to each of the mail pieces and storing tabulated voting results in the votes cast database; and storing an indication in the voted database, for each postal voting indicium read, that a voter associated with that indicium has cast a vote, the indication being stored in the voted database in a record associated with the voter registration number corresponding to the voter.
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Specification