As a type geek, I find this Michigan court battle inspiring. As a citizen, it’s uglier than Comic Sans:
At issue is whether a summary of the question, used on a petition to gather signatures to get the question on the ballot, was written in a type size specified by state law: 14-point boldface. The typeface used on the petition was 14-point Calibri produced by Microsoft Corp.’s Word software, but a dispute has arisen over whether the font renders the type at the full 14-point size.
The difference in size, as pointed out to the Michigan Supreme court, is the width of a dime.
At stake, depending on which side’s lawyers were talking Wednesday in Michigan Supreme Court, is either a narrow matter of whether statutes about ballot questions should be enforced as written, or a broader philosophical question of whether typographical quirks can be used to block citizens from deciding major issues at the polls.
[…]
The letters in the Calibri font used by Stand Up For Democracy, when measured using an “E scale” ruler used by type designers, were less than 14/72 of an inch tall, which is the definition of 14-point type, Michigan’s Court of Appeals had ruled. But the lower court said the question should remain on the ballot because the petition was in “substantial compliance” with the law, and Michigan courts previously ruled that was good enough.
Stimulus vs. austerity. Union vs. corporation. And now, finally, MSWord vs. E scales.