Lenexa, Kan. – W+D North America Inc., the leading provider of envelope converting machines and intelligent direct mail inserting technology, is announcing the sale of twenty-two (22) of our high integrity ballot inserters to be used by the leading commercial providers of ballots in the North American Market during the upcoming 2020 elections.

The orders are for both our W+D BB 700 S2 and the new 20K BB820 intelligent mail inserting platforms. These machines are going to seven (7) leading commercial mail service ballot providers located in the west, central and eastern regions of the US.

Many states that now allow citizens to request absentee ballots without restriction are seeing a sudden surge in ballot applications. Other states grant absentee ballots only to certain voters, such as Armed Forces service members, handicapped or elderly voters and students living outside the state, but are relaxing the rules to make it easier for any citizen to vote without visiting a polling place in person. A few states have even considered sending absentee ballots to every registered voter, and California has already implemented this change. Overall, the industry is seeing a much higher demand in 2020 for mail in ballots

Andrew Schipke, Vice President Marketing and Strategic Sales, comments ”we estimate that the commercial ballot print and mailing sector will now have a capacity of approximately 60 million ballots for next general election, and a much smaller volume of ballots will be done by the states and counties themselves. Absentee voting presents a big challenge in the 2020 elections. How will election officials send and process ballots for a much greater number of voters than they have ever faced? COVID19 has without a doubt been the major reason for the landslide of vote by mail inserter orders we have received, though this is also seen as simply an acceleration of an already fast-moving trend throughout the US. W+D is the leading supplier in the high-speed high integrity inserting segment with nearly an 80% share of the high-volume vote by mail inserters. Ballot inserting has some of the same technological similarities as 1:1 direct mail inserting, however it does require additional levels of 1:1 inserting sophistication, systemwide security, and an understanding of processing data received from the election officials. We do see that as vote by mail grows, there can be a natural crossover from and to intelligent 1:1 direct mail, where companies with the right security and data infrastructure could serve both market segments.

In the 2016 general election there were about 30 million absentee ballots cast (of the approx. 55 million sent to registered voters) so with this expected sizeable increase in vote by mail ballots, we are watching closely the demand side of the equation, as the all new ballot inserter systems need to be in place and ready to run by September to begin processing ballots for the November election.”

For more information on W+D ballot inserters contact [email protected]. 

Commercial ballot print and mailing sector will now have a capacity of approximately 60 million ballots.