i really dont agree with u on the procedure u claim the NL are sent out by.......It is only letters of interview that are sent out according to when a particular region is current. The notification letters are sent out according to how they are sorted out, and the reason why people here in the US receive theirs first is because the letters are originated from here as letters take a couple of days to deliver here, so naturally other letters sent out to inetrnational destinations the same day with that of the US will take a couple of weeks.........
Ok I am going to try to explain it once again.
First of all, you are right that People with US mailing address will START receiving their NL ahead of other
with International mailing address. On that one, I agree with you. (again the key here is "START").
You enter DV Lottery based on your region. Could be AS, EU, OC, AF and SA region.
and no matter where your region are, you can have US Mailing Address or Your Local Mailing Address.
For example,
You are applying as participant from Nigeria, so you are from AF region.
Right now you are located/living/ have home address in Nigeria,
but you do have a choice,
you can either put your Home Address in Nigeria as your Mailing Address (or your other current mailing address),
or if you have a friend or family in USA, you can borrow their address in USA as your Mailing address.
If you are LUCKY and win the DV Lottery,
the NL will be sent to the Mailing address you input in the application.
So if you input the US Mailing address, the NL will be sent to that US address,
eventhough you are applying from AF region and your current home is actually in Nigeria.
Now I also want to tell you how they sort the numbering.
Each region have their own number
Meaning there will be AF region with case number AF000001
and there will be AS region with case number AS000001
and there will be OC region with case number OC000001
and so on and so on
That is how they sorted it out.
so there will be winner with the EXACT same number (on the above example that number is 000001)
but with different "region prefix" in front of their
case number to differentiate them.
Take note that TOTAL there are around 100,000 NL selected each year,
but there are NO NL with 100,000 as their case number,... even 80,000 as their case number is NON existant...
why because 100,000 is the total number of NL sent but NOT the number for sorting.
but if you Add the HIGHEST case number from each region, it will add up to near 100,000 total in total.
again let make you and example with made up number.
for example AF had 30,000 winner so the last/highest case number from AF region will be 30,000
for example OC had 10,000 winner, so the highest case number from OC will be 10,000
for example AS had 40,000 winner,so the highest case number from AS will be 40,000
for example EU had 19,000 winner,so the highest case number from EU will be 19,000
for example SA had 1,000 winner,so the highest case number from SA will be 1,000
If you TOTAL the number it will add up to 100,000 winner,
but their case number will not exceed 40,000 in AS case or 30,000 in AF case etc etc...
Now let me also point it out once again that:
a. for DV Winner with US Mailing address, their NL will be sent by US MAIL Service,
and the Post Mark/Stamp on the envelope will show a US Post Office Stamp.
it does not matter what region you are classified, but as long as the mailing address is in US,
US Post Office is the one who deliver your NL to your US mailing address.
b. for DV Winner with OUTSIDE US (International) Mailing address
their NL will be sent from KCC to a EUROPEAN COUNTRY Mail Service, which will later sent it to
the distribution hub in the specific region and then that distribution hub will sent it to the specific country where the mailing address located.
Look, I do NOT know yet whether this year DV will be using European Country Mail Service again,
but the past DV (since DV2005 to DV 2010), always use European Country Mail Service.
What KCC do is open a TENDER, and ask for any Post Office from all around the world,
to BID. KCC will then select which Post Office willing to deliver the NL with international address,
with the cheapest price.(and perhaps KCC also consider whether that post office had the capability
to handle this kind of task too, before awarding them with the contract).
Logically, if you do NOT put US address as your Mailing Address,
then most probably you will put your current home mailing address,
and again most probably your current home mailing address will be inside the REGION you are applying too.
and for some people who use mailing address that is NOT in US, but also not inside their region,
(for example a person apply with EU region but currently work in Japan),
for this special case,
KCC will sort it differently and combine it with the letter going to that particular region where
his/her current mailing address are.This kind of anomaly should be in minority, but it do require
special handling, and I am sure KCC computer system will be able to automatically
redirect this kind of special case.
So KCC will pack and sort according to the region, and sent it in Bulk to that
European Country Post Office.
After the European Country Post Office received the Bulk mail shipment from KCC,
all they need to do now is to send them to the distribution hub for that region.
and from that distribution hub, it will then be sent to each specific country within that region.
If KCC do NOT sort according to the region earlier during the NL printing process,
European Country post office will need to sort it again, and this cost time and money.
so this will NOT happen,
because it will cost KCC more in the end,
since the cost will be eventually paid by KCC.
Do you want to know how KCC able to sort it for free ?
easy.
When KCC print the NL Letter, they print it in Batch for specific region at a time.
They do NOT jump from each region to another region when printing them.
Beside as you recall the case number is sort for each region.
For example when KCC print the NL,
they will print AF00001 then AF00002 then AF00003 and so on until they reach the batch amount
they want for the day.
they will NOT print AF00001 then OC00001 then EU00001 because it will be a nightmare for Logistic.
if I can make a flow chart, it will be easy to understand...
let me start it from the beginning.
KCC will do this kind of IF and GOTO flowchart.
below is the step by step:
They do this for region by region.
Example on Monday, KCC print for AF region
1. IF US mailing address, Print and then stack it with the AF region stack that will be delivered to US Mail
for delivery inside USA. if NOT US Mailing Address, GOTO STEP 2
2. IF International mailing address, Print and then stack it with the AF region stack that will be deliverd in bulk to European Post Office.
then on Tuesday, KCC can decide whether they want to print more AF region (since AF region had lot of participant), or they can choose to different region.
for example KCC decide to print for EU region on Tuesday so,
1. IF US mailing address, Print and then stack it with the EU region stack that will be delivered to US Mail for delivery inside USA. if NOT US Mailing Address, GOTO STEP 2
2. IF International mailing address, Print and then stack it with the EU region stack that will be delivered in bulk to European Post Office.
and so on and so on.
Now for the US Mailing address, they can sent the Printed NL in batch the same day they print it.
but for International Mailing address, they will need to wait until SEVERAL Batch of Region had been
packed and sorted according to different region is ready for One Big BULK shipment.
Once this BULK shipment had arrived,
the European post office will see that they are already sorted (and packed separately) for each region,
and it will make them work faster and easier.
from there the European will sent one batch of shipment to each region (depending on the plane schedule to that region), but most probably they will not be able to sent all the mail (from different region), to their region distribution HUB at the same day...
Now to answer your statement where you said : "The notification letters are sent out according to how they are sorted out"
you need to take notice with the DV winner who have US address as their mailing address.
you can check with the past few YEARS of DV winner post.
You will notice that for the first day or two,
there will only be ONE REGION who said they had received their NL in the US,
and few days latter, another Different Region will start to claim they had received their NL in the US.
That show that for winner with US mailing address, KCC do sent some region earlier than other region.
Simply because they sorted their mailing order based on Per Region.
but again they will not send only one region until that region is finished,
but they will alternate...
example for first day they will sent the first 1000 case of AF region with US Mailing Address,
and the second day they will sent the first 1000 case of OC region with US Mailing Address,
and the third day for other region... and so on and so on...
and the following week they will sent the second 1000 case (case 1001 to 2000) of AF region with US mailing address and so on and so on.
because if they sent MIX region for US mailing address, then why (from historical claim), you see only certain region claim they got their NL first and
other region got it later, eventhough they are mailed to US Mailing Address ?
so that historical data show that KCC do NOT sent mix region or all region in the same day even for US mailing address.
That kind of sorting system explain why even for US address, some region will always got their NL earlier than other region.
All you need to do is to backward engineer based on the past trend of how NL Delivered in the past DV,
to come out with this explanation.
ah I just remember ONE MORE THING,
when KCC PRINT the NL, they do NOT print all 100,000 NL in one single day,
that is why you see people with DIFFERENT DATE on their NL !!!
That again show KCC do print in BATCH with DIFFERENT DATE
and sort it and later sent it PER BATCH according to their region after they print it.
I do hope my explanation above is clear enough but if you still disagree,
well it is up to you.