Patent ID: 7240835

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a ballot envelope scanner which is adapted to process ballot envelopes, each ballot envelope having a top edge and a leading edge, while moving said ballot envelopes through the ballot envelope scanner along a straight path through the ballot scanner, which ballot envelope scanner comprises; a feed portion including a plurality of rollers aligned with each other and which are characterized by a first side and a second side of the plurality of rollers, a fan opposing said second side of the plurality of rollers which is adapted to draw air from the first side of the plurality of rollers toward the second side of the plurality of rollers, a feed tray, a vertical stabilizer opposing the first side of the plurality of rollers which includes a follower element that is biased to urge the vertical stabilizer along the feed tray toward the plurality of rollers, and a motor adapted to rotatably drive at least one of the plurality of rollers, a processing portion including a plurality of pairs of pinch rollers, wherein each pair of pinch rollers includes a first roller which is in fixed alignment with the plurality of rollers in the feed portion, and which plurality of rollers is also characterized by having first and second sides, and an opposing second roller which is biased toward the first roller from the first side, at least one scanning device, at least one print head adapted to print an endorsement image on a ballot envelope as the ballot envelope passes the print head, a diverter plate which is selectively operative to move into the straight path to divert ballot envelopes moving along the straight path from said straight path, a kick roller perpendicular to the aligned rollers, at least one motor adapted to drive one or more of the pinch or kick rollers, an output portion including a tray partitioned by a shared wall into an accepted tray and a rejected tray, wherein said accepted tray includes a guide rail along the shared wall which guide rail is aligned with the straight path and a flipping element to urge ballot envelopes to tip into the accepted tray and wherein said rejected tray is adapted to receive diverted ballot envelopes, at least one computer, a work station application adapted to run on a computer, which work station application is operative to receive and interpret a voter identifier from each ballot envelope; to determine if the voter identifier is associated with a particular voter; to receive, associate, and store a signature image for said particular voter if the voter identifier is associated with a particular voter; to print an endorsement on the ballot envelope if the voter identifier is associated with a particular voter; and to direct the diverter plate to divert the ballot envelope into the rejected tray if the voter identifier is not associated with a particular voter.