Elected officials and government watchdogs criticized the New York City Board of Elections for printing ballots for the November elections with the candidates’ names in tiny, six-point font, with the Board arguing that the font size is necessary.
New York is a Fusion state that allows a candidate to be on more then one party line. This year there will be 15 candidates for mayor and 20 party lines.
One of the candidates, Randy Credico, won a court case from the 2012 election that required that each cadidate should have a separate line for each party name.
Assemblyman Kavanagh, State Senator Liz Krueger, Councilwoman Gale A. Brewer and groups that include Common Cause New York and Citizens Union called on the board to reverse its decision and to print the candidates’ names in a larger size.
The board’s executive director, Michael J. Ryan, said in an interview that the small font was necessary in order to include all of the languages required by law on a single-page ballot. In Queens, ballots must include Bengali, Chinese, English, Korean and Spanish; in parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan, they must include Chinese, English and Spanish.
As to the critics’ suggestion of printing separate bilingual ballots in different languages, Mr. Ryan said that was under consideration for the future but was not possible this year. He said poll sites would have magnifying glasses available, as well as ballot-marking devices to allow voters to see their ballots enlarged up to 22-point font.
The typeface this year will not be the smallest ever used. Mr. Ryan said that in the 2010 election, the board used a five-point font.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!
Michael H. Drucker
Technorati Tag in Del.icio.us 
No comments:
Post a Comment