I just wanna thank you and get out and vote show up and vote you will determine the outcome of this election due to the pandemic. Voting by mail is huge right now. Election officials are bracing for an unprecedented wave of mail-in ballots in 2016. Less than 34000000 ballots were mailed. in total this year. Voters have requested over 90000000 ballots to be submitted by mail and a week before the election. more than 45000000 have already been returned and for it all to succeed. There's one basic requirement for a ballot that has to make it all the way through the mail in both directions from your local election office to you, the voter and back again. a ballot that can't be counted is to me the ultimate election tragedy. We have to have an election system that supports people through the process of voting so that their ballots get counted, which is where the center for Civic Design comes in. they have worked exclusively with the US PS and trying to create the I guess you can say. Election male envelope The envelope is a kind of technical machine. It's a machine you've designed to carry the ballot to and from the voter. The US Postal Service will repeatedly scan and sort that envelope, which means you wanna ensure that those mail pieces are easily visible that they can be recognized that everything is clearly printed step one start with a rectangle US. PS sorting machines use the rectangular shape to Orient the envelope, but it soon. That it's wider than it is tall and anything that's different is gonna get spit out. The machines are gonna say I don't know what to do with this and it has to get hand processed. that makes it take more time. Then there's what goes on that rectangle. It's what the automated envelope reading machines are looking for the upper right corner is reserved for postage and several vertical bars. They call that the face and what is it The face identification mark Thank you that's to help the machines know, which is the front of the envelope. There's the return address. The delivery address the election male logo that's the swoop thing. This is election with the stars behind it only election officers are allowed to use it and all of those things need to be in specific areas and specific places. That's a lot to put on a little tiny rectangle. A lot of what we did was just sort of moving around blocks of text on the envelope to find that perfect sweet spot where the envelope was easy for the machines to read but also easy for the voters to. Understand and also easy for the election officials to receive and get the information that they need and then you need the magic thing, which is the intelligent male bar code. An intelligent bar code is actually an encoded string of digits. This string of vertical bars is code for a twenty to 31 digit number that contains a wealth of information about each envelope. The first element in that bar code is something called the bar code identifiers for election male. It's usually. Two digits usually zero, the piece that follows that is the service type ID or the state. This is gonna identify. the class of mail ballots are sent as first class mail or US, PS Marketing Mail, and as of August 2018, it tells us whether or not that piece is a ballot. So just by reading the bar code, they can tell that it's something to do with an election and it ensures that as election male is moving through the postal stream, those pieces are being treated. Efficiency as they're being processed after the state, you have the Mailer ID or mid whoever owns that mid will own any associated scan data. Every time that intelligent mail bar code is scanned for ballots. The Mailer ID usually belongs to the local or state election office or the vendor, helping to provide mail services to the jurisdiction of state. After the mid is the unique serial number for every single voter. The last piece is the zip code. Or what we also call the routing code and so when you piece that stir that all together, you've got your intelligent Mail bar code. as that ballot is traveling through the mail that intelligent Mail bar code is being scanned and this helps us ensure a balance full chain of custody in the mail. So you can watch that piece as it's moving and ensure that it's getting to the place that it needs to get to because the bar code is encoded. an individual voter can't use it to follow their ballot, but the US PS. And other tracking services can if there's ever an instance where it seems like a ballot hasn't been delivered or received by the election Office using that intelligent mail bar code can help the US PS track down where that specific envelope might be. so once you drop your ballot in the mail, there are safeguards in place to make sure your vote gets where it needs to go. The US. PS is definitely an innovative institution, always thinking of methods in which to improve the services that they provide to customers, especially when it comes to election mail. Most states allow voters. To drop their mail in ballots off at the local election office in person in many states. If you order a mail-in ballot, you can still vote in person. The process varies from state to state, but may involve surrendering your ballot to the polling place or Election Center before voting in person. despite the systems in place to get your ballot where it needs to go issues may still arise leading to your vote being rejected. These include problems with your signature, not filling out all. Required information on the envelope like the date, your address or birth date and not mailing or dropping off your ballot on time. our work is about making sure that everybody who is eligible and wants to vote can vote and maybe even going a step further and saying it's about making sure that we encourage everyone who's eligible to vote. For more information on how to vote, visit Vote.gov E dot gov. How to.gov