Re: Ovals positioned back to back on ballots.

["Tyler" <tyler@dieboldes.com>]

I have been aware for some time (from personal experience) that Sharpie pens
cause bleed through on ballots and could cause a problem if ovals on the
front and back were ever back to back.

How about if we remove Sharpie pens from the list of approved ballot marking
instruments and train our customers not to use Sharpie pens?  This seems
like the easy, low-tech solution.

Tyler
-----Original Message-----
From: Sophia Lee <sophia@dieboldes.com>
To: Request For Change <rcr@dieboldes.com>
Date: Monday, November 22, 1999 11:53 AM
Subject: Ovals positioned back to back on ballots.


>RCR: sl-112099-01
>Requested: November 20, 1999
>Required: December 15 1999
>County: King County, WA
>Election: February 29, 2000
>
>The election in King County on November 2, 1999 went well. However, we did
>have a "bleed-through" problem from the Sharpie Pens.
>There were a lot of races and issues in this November election resulting in
>some 450 ballot styles.  Unfortunately, a couple of the ovals on the
Seattle
>ballots were back to back.  Some of the marks on the front of the ballot
>bled through to the ovals on the back of the ballots causing a race on the
>back to register as over-votes.  This was detected and corrected within 2
>hours of the opening of the polls.
>Since Sharpies are still approved ballot marking instruments (according to
>Ian), request that GEMS automatically detect if the ovals for any ballot
are
>back to back and either
>a) provide an exception report identifying the ballot styles with back to
>back ovals or
>b) automatically adjust the oval column for the ballot.