Ballot printer questions in Arizona

American Thinker ^ | 24 Dec, 2022 | Maker S. Mark

[MtnClimber]

I am pretty technical. I was surprised that shrink to fit became a talking point at the hearing on Thursday in Maricopa County.

I primarily know of one program that offers a shrink to fit option: Excel. Shrink to fit is, in my understanding, an application-level setting. Some copiers have a shrink to fit option, but it takes a literal picture and resizes it. That process does take some time and computing resources, and that copier is usually on the expensive side of the equation.

What I missed Thursday is where they allege that the shrink to fit option was set. If they are alleging that it was set in the voting application software, the software should have audit trails for changes, and we should be able to see if that was indeed the case.

If they are alleging that the change was made in the printer, then did anyone check the printer manual to see if that was indeed an option?

I have worked with Oki, Brother, HP, Epson, etc., and I can't remember the printers generally having a shrink to fit option. Printers are designed to receive data and print it. There is only so much processing power in a printer, and typically, printers just don't have the processing power required to resize an image. That is ultimately what shrink to fit does. It performs an image-resizing function.

If it was not the printer configuration, then did someone check the application to see if it has a shrink to fit option? For example, Microsoft Word does not have that option in the print settings. Microsoft PowerPoint does not have a shrink to fit option.

I know that the lawyers were throwing a curve with this admission, but just because you are familiar with shrink to fit in Excel...

[kvanbrunt2]

The ballots were deliberately printed 19 inch image to 20 inch paper in order to prevent tabulation. This could only be done with password access.>>>.And this was mostly a scale option rather than shrink to fit. If the print is smaller than the paper. also most likely a printer driver option. And this could have been set inadvertently. from a prior setup. of course the process is not auditable therefore fraudulent on its face.

[kvanbrunt2]

And at the end of the day. the ballots were all hand counted. end of story.

[Pollard]

Your paper is set to Letter size as is most common. You might be able to select Custom in the drop down or you might have to click on Options to get to a Custom Paper size dialog.

The election machine makers have many models of machines and versions of software for different purposes. Touch screens and the apps for it. Ballot designer apps for ballot printers etc. One would have to know what Maricopa uses and get access to the operation manual for it to know what can and can't be done, how print size is changed etc.

Certified Systems - https://www.eac.gov/voting-equipment/certified-voting-systems

I think all of the above are what States/Counties get to choose from though it's possible they could choose their own system.

[omni-scientist]

Yes, as does my Adobe Acrobat reader out to my inexpensive Brother printer. I can set it for any scale factor.

I would think that printer operation at the voting centers would use either .pdf or .ps file format which facilitates scaling the image.

[Bubba_Leroy]

Adobe Acrobat has a shrink to fit setting. I use it all the time when printing PDF documents.

[RideForever]

You’re mixing apples with oranges, scanners with printers.

That, and any PDF application will have a shrink to fit and expand to fit feature.

The one thing you were right about is did Hobbs stay after the rest of the crew were done archiving, resetting, testing, certifying, securing tabulators? I didn’t save the clip that showed this.

[Chewbarkah]

The “printers” involved in this are specialty devices designed to work with election systems software. Ballot size requirements vary to accommodate the number of offices, candidates, and other issues involved in the election at hand. Changing the printed ballot size is a feature that CAN be legitimately used. Unfortunately, crooks found a way to misuse it.

News reports on Nov 8 and 9, 2022 said that after hours of problems, technicians arrived on scene who changed the printer settings TO MAKE THE IMAGES DARKER. After the darkening, the tabulators could read the ballots. Not a peep about this “darkening fix” in the trial. So WHO SPREAD THE FALSE STORY just after the election? Unpeel that and you start showing criminal intent. Someone was hiding what they knew about the sizing issue early on. The attempts of Election Officials to pretend they didn’t know about the image size issue is BS.

[daniel1212]

Best post. But to just reduce margins seems like what a word processor would be used for. But

Maricopa County county Director of Elections Scott Jarrett... who testified as a witness for the plaintiff on Wednesday and as a witness for the defendants on Thursday, admitted under direct examination by defense counsel that the county is conducting a root cause analysis of the Election Day issues. During this post-election analysis, the county found last month that one of the problems with ballot-on-demand printers was a "fit-to-paper" or "shrink-to-fit" setting adjusted on Election Day, Jarrett said. - https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4118426/posts

[curious7]

“And at the end of the day. the ballots were all hand counted. end of story.”

The problems with that are (as reported) a) no chain of custody with a large number of ballots, b) ballots placed in the Door 3 bags not counted before they left the voting location. So are you absolutely certain the ballots that left the voting location are the same ballots that arrived at the ‘hand recount’ location? If you are, I’ve a bridge to sell you at a very attractive price, in Brooklyn, NY.

[Pollard]

https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/VotingSystems/DVS-DemocracySuite511/documentation/UG-EED-UserGuide-5-11-CO.pdf

Page 206

Width, Height, Margins. Simple

334 pages for this piece of software? Purposefully complex and inaccessible to most people. Just glancing through the TOC and it's the equivalent of learning MS Excel, MS Word and MS Access(database), plus using additional Network settings.

[Dr. Sivana]

Almost all copiers will shrink or expand the image, not just “ very high priced ones”.

Correct. And in the old days, no fancy programming was needed. You could HEAR the lens mive back and forth as you adjusted the setting.

[Go_Raiders]

Yep, the old “ballots were all counted” trope...

Just one little problem there, Chief. The voting process ground to a near halt, running out the clock as people don’t have extra hours in their lives to hunt for working polling places.

The whole argument the Left uses is that voting is too difficult, so all safeguards must be removed. Then they turn around and make voting the traditional way near impossible.

You’re right in one aspect though. The count of ballots ends up being 100% complete. All the harvested, manufactured, fictional address, deceased voter, nursing home comatose, etc. ballots get tabulated with incredible precision every election.

Some unattributed wise person summed it up best decades ago - If voting made a difference, they wouldn’t let you do it.

[Steven Tyler]

The retarded son has the mad’s cause voting on voting days removes on of the easy ways for Dem to cheat.

Way’s to cheat.
#1. Keep a running total of early votes and who voted. Wait for day of votes to come in. Manufacture and cast, on behalf of those who did not vote, a vote for your candidate.

[missnry]

Maricopa County county Director of Elections Scott Jarrett... who testified as a witness for the plaintiff on Wednesday and as a witness for the defendants on Thursday, admitted under direct examination by defense counsel that the county is conducting a root cause analysis of the Election Day issues.

The snake Scott Jarrett gave testimony that the issue occurred in the previous elections! So - my understanding in the portions of the trial I watched were as follows: I understood that 20 INCH paper was used for ballots. Maricrappa County ballot on demand has 22,000 different ballot configurations depending upon which precinct you live in. Every one of the ballot configurations would print an image to a sheet of 20 inch paper. Lake’s team was allowed by the judge to examine a small sample of ballots. The ballots that were examined were obvious to the expert that they were 19 inch images on 20 inch paper. AND the expert noted that ballots that were not part of the sample but could be seen in a box of ballots were 19 INCH IMAGES on 20 INCH paper. I understood from the expert witness that the only way the printer could be printing 19 inch images instead of 20 inch images were through the action of an administrator account! When the tabulator received a 19 INCH IMAGE the markings are in the incorrect location and the tabulator would not accept the ballot - why? Because the tabulator is programmed to receive 20 INCH IMAGE and those markings have to be in the correct location! NOW - here is the speculation. Why? #1 the incorrect image size would prevent the tabulator from accepting the ballot. Stoppage at the polling location and delays and confusion ensued. #2 every 19 inch image would have to be put into magic drawer #3! What happens to the drawer #3 ballot images?? They go downtown to the Election Theft Center! The image would be scanned and rejected by the downtown theft center in their tabulator because it is programmed to receive a 20 inch image. THEN - from my understanding - the ballot image is created onto a NEW ballot by a “REPUBLICAN” and a Democrat to duplicate the voters intent! The 19 inch image ballot should then be traceable to the newly created 20 inch image ballot. My understanding from the expert testimony when they discovered the 19 inch ballots they asked for the recreated 20 inch ballot and were told they were not available and that it would take days to find them! The tampering of image settings by an administrator account is the crux of the issue. It had to have been done with malice. The closing argument of Hobb’s team was that Election Day voters are idiots to vote on Election Day and clog up the voting centers when they could have voted by mail or early voting. It’s their own fault and Kari Lake deserves to lose for telling people to vote on Election Day!

[Yo-Yo]

I would think that printer operation at the voting centers would use either .pdf or .ps file format which facilitates scaling the image.

I agree that the ballots were most likely .pdf files and were read by Adobe Acrobat just so they couldn't be edited.

But you can still dink around with the printer settings like fit to page, print full size, etc.

However, a 19" ballot vs. a 20" ballot shouldn't have mattered to the scanners, and here's why:

The ballot is printed with guide bars along the top and left sides so that the scanner can calibrate itself to where the bubbles are. The scanner should have been able to lock onto the guide bars and read a 19" ballot just as easily as a 20" ballot.

Something was set in the scanners that prevented this from happening. I don't know if it was accidental or intentional, but it shouldn't have made any difference to the scanner whether the ballot was printed 19" long or 20" long as long as all of the guide bars were intact.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

[mbrfl]

So basically the shrink to fit explanation is the county’s attempt at providing an accidental cause to hide the real cause, which was a deliberate change that required password access?

[asinclair]

Shrink to fit is, in my understanding, an application-level setting. Some copiers have a shrink to fit option, but it takes a literal picture and resizes it. That process does take some time and computing resources, and that copier is usually on the expensive side of the equation.

Shrink-to-fit is not the responsibility of the application, in the three most common operating systems: Windows, Mac, Linux. It's triggered by the printer driver. The print window, to the applications, is a fixed size. Scaling is done either by driver software or in the printer itself.

Shrink to fit is dead easy with printers using Adobe Postscript imagers.

It can be configured as a global setting. The application doesn't know it's being done. I speak as a developer of applications in Windows and Linux.

"The settings are set by a script." Depends on whether the script knows about all the setting. Because most goverment pukes use Windows, this could be a Registry setting that was overlooked by the script.

To know for sure, we would need more details on just what the script looks like.

Fat chance of that.

[deport]

Your name got me for a moment.....
It looked to me at first glance .. as in clair
then realized it probably your name... A Sinclair.
Have a good day.

[Maelstrom]

Shrink to fit is an option in almost any publishing software.

Most printers, today, have the computing power to do such a thing, many can, and have that option, but not all of them.

[Maelstrom]

Bingo