The city’s Board of Elections voted on Tuesday to increase the font size on its ballots for the general election in November, after many New Yorkers complained that it was difficult to read the names of the candidates during this month’s primary election, says the New York Times.
The candidates’ names will now be printed in a nine-point font, up from the previous seven-point font that was used.
“That’s as big as we were able to get it,” Juan Carlos Polanco, a commissioner on the Board of Elections, told the paper.
According to the board, state law required uniform font sizes across ballots, so there was not too much leeway. Ballot designers, though, discovered that if longer names were broken up across two lines of type, larger letters could fit.
“It’s not where they should be, but it is an improvement,” said Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh, who sponsored the Voter Friendly Ballot Act, which originally called for a large twelve-point font.
On primary Election Day, Bed-Stuy Patch editor C. Zawadi Morris found confusion at her polling site – and from readers, as well.
One Patch reader, M Davis said: "The names of the two candidates running for District Leader in the 56th AD were listed in small print. The candidates names should be in BOLD print to make the ballot user friendly."
