Automate Signature Verification

Apply 6-Sigma Best Practices to Build an Audit Ready, Trusted System to Automate Signature Verification

The U.S. Congress created The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to identify threats, share information and assist with incident response in defense of the nation’s critical infrastructure.This organization is called CISA. Per the CISA, use of Automated Signature Verification (ASV) can be reliably applied to a multi-step process that “promotes transparency and integrity. In this process, ASV provides first-pass analysis on all signatures with human review reserved for ballots that do not match in the first stage of the process.

In the second and third passes, best practices of 6-Sigma and Lean come into play. When the ASV’s finding does not meet the confidence threshold for a valid signature, next steps would be:

1. Verify against other sources of the signature, such as the DMV or internal database, or if they exist in digital format, marriage licenses, title documents, etc. These are compared chronologically for variations of those authentic signatures against the one in question.   This allows for natural signature variations across time.
2. For ballots, a postcard can be sent to the voter at the address on file for confirmation of that signature. The technology exists to print for mailing at the time the signature is queued for review.  This is also recommended where a death notice or incompetence or felony incarceration has been received for someone signing a petition or ballot at or around the time of the petition or ballot.

The third pass handles the difficult cases where neither the software nor the human review can arrive at a conclusion. ASV software will check multiple aspects, (not just visual inspection), to compare the signatures in the first stage. It follows the same steps every time, which can be proven to any auditor or litigant.

Further, these steps would take place in a workflow process that tracks the date and time, assignee, time to process and decisions made about the signature. None of the activity can be edited, even by the system administrator, for a trusted, audit ready process.

Want to learn more? Western Integrated Systems is the go-to resource to assist with automation of this process. The software exists. The hardware exists. The source document(s) exist. It’s a matter of pulling them together in a Trusted System process that will stand up to audits and litigation. Contact us today WIS has the expertise and solutions to help!