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If you go that far, then why not
print the whole ballot specification on all ballot proofs? Then the
whole message (not just part of the message) will get to "the guy who puts the
ink on the ballot".
I understand your frustration,
Greg. Here you are, with many elections under your belt using this red
oval color, and you haven't had a problem (at least not one that was yet
attributed to the red oval color). And yet, your hands are tied as to
specifying the color, because you have no control over that. But you
continue to recommend it (unapproved) to Canadian customers anyway due to your
confidence level with that color.
This business about Pantone 032 Warm
Red has to be put to rest. Global has to test the worst-case
configurations possible when using these ovals to ensure that we
don't screw ourselves when creating ballots in the future. I know our
"Famous Name Demo Ballots" have red ovals but I'm not even sure what specific
Pantone color is used for those (another project I have to take care
of.) But those ballots have got oodles of space around the ovals, so I'm
less worried about them. Now take a complex election ballot with not much
room between the oval and the text/boundary boxes and what happens? Is it
better or worse?
I'm not willing to say that every
AccuVote will process that type of ballot until we thoroughly investigate
it. That means changing the specifications after the investigation.
And when it comes to investigation or specifications, it appears to be me that's
got to do it. (Unless someone else is willing to take up the torch?
Any takers? I'd be glad to hand it
off?... I didn't think so.)
I think this red oval issue will
conclude this year, but it will probably require some more restrictions in GEMS
for how close text and boundary box lines get to the voting ovals. (I will RCR
that separately if it comes down to that)
What I don't seem to have is time to
do this. Let me see if I can schedule some testing in December on the red
oval color so I can compare it to the thin black oval reflectivity. Don't
worry about sending me samples. I've gotten plenty from Sophia (King
County) and Greg (Canadian elections) in the past. After we've done that,
maybe then we can look at putting some ink info on the ballot proofs, but not
yet.
Until then, right now the best color
in the world to use with our Visible Light Reader is Pantone 130U. It's
that orange color that looks so bright, you can't miss it. The next best
color is Pantone 129U. That's the same color the US Census is going to standardize on for
their Year 2000 census scanning forms. But far be it for Global to start
using standards now when we've created so many of our own in the past
years.
Ian
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