Something “Comic”-al about Voting

Upon being told by my friend that we (American citizens) actually vote in the primaries and not some representatives (I’m a little rusty on my government knowledge, I know; sorry, Mr. Gray), I was obligated to register to vote. So I did the online registration thing and had to wait for them to send me the form to sign before sending it back to complete the registration.

Today I received the form, and I was going to just sign it and drop it in the mail as soon as possible because the office has to receive the registrations at least 15 days before the election (Feb. 5 in California). But when I opened my form and saw the computer-printed text, I knew I had to blog about it before mailing it.

Why, oh why did they use Comic Sans? When I see that on government forms like this, I think of volunteer old ladies sitting in front of outdated 90’s computers at the elections office or whatever, choosing a “cute” font thinking that boring-looking forms like this would look “prettier” and “more fun” and might actually encourage soon-to-be voters to drop it in the mail sooner than they would.

And the thing is, that probably is true and does work on most voters.

But I don’t understand. Aside from it being Comic Sans, the text doesn’t even fit in the squares, nor does it align with them! (Notice the bubble for “Mr.”) The only explanation I can think of (aside from pissing off graphic designers) is that they need something that is large, not normal-looking, and curved where they probably shouldn’t be, to jump out of the squares to make sure that you notice what you entered on the form online was correct. If that’s their reason, then it’s effective—sort of. “Sort of” because while the text did get my attention, it felt like such a sin to look at, and I almost didn’t want to double-check the form before mailing it in.

Maybe that’s why old people vote more and youngsters like me don’t.

Flush.

P.S. No offense to volunteer old ladies; it’s not your fault Comic Sans was created.