Automatic Signature Verification Secures Postal Voting

Councils all over the world - and in particular in the UK - are looking for a cost-effective, fast, reliable and trustworthy method of signature capture and verification that also supports auditing the signature verification process itself. A similar challenge to the one that many large financial institutions are facing in their transactions processes every day.

Automatic Signature Verification is the answer to that challenge. SOFTPRO, the world market leader with its SignPlus® product family, serves more than 200 financial institutions and government agencies. SOFTPRO’s solutions allow to store signatures in a sophisticated data base (SignBase®) plus the ability to verify captured signatures from transaction forms automatically (SignCheck®). Customers all over the world have been successful in combating fraud while reducing their processing time and costs. SOFTPRO is ready to deliver the benefits recognized to restore the confidence in the election process, enabling secure voting with trustworthy automatic signature verification.

Background: The Electoral Administration Act in the UK which received Royal Assent in July 2006 includes measures to prevent fraud. One of them is to enable Returning Officers to check signatures on returned postal voting statements against other records held by the Returning Officer or Electoral Registration Officer, for a given area. Postal voters can now sign to receive ballot papers. Signatures on applications must be stored as references so that a postal voter’s signature may be scrutinised. These provisions are expected to be brought into effect for all elections from May 2007 onwards.