US3136567A - Newspaper balloting method - Google Patents

Description

June 9, 1964 w. D. SMITH 3,135,567

NEWSPAPER BALLOTING METHOD Filed Jan. l1, 1963 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 THE DAILY NEWS June 9, 1964 w. D. SMITH 3,136,567

AnmwsPAPER BALLOTING METHOD Filed Jan. ll, 1963 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 THE PULSE LIHE PEOPLE IN VEN TOR Willard .Smm

United States Patent O 3,136,567 NEWSPAPER BALLo'rlNG METHOD Willard D. smith, Box 576, Maitland, Fla. Filed rdn. 1i, 196s, ser. No. 250,941 2 claims. (Cl. 282-25) This invention relates to a system and/or method of controlled balloting by postal cards and more particularly to a newspaper balloting method of quickly and accurately obtaining public opinion polls from a printed page or a portion thereof.

An object of this invention is to provide a method of facilitating the taking of public opinion polls by printing coded data in a periodical or other printed medium and having means to directly transfer data to a suitable medium, preferably a standard postal card, for subsequent analysis and classification.

The taking of public opinion polls by printed publications is, at present, a cumbersome and relatively costly and unreliable process. Ballots may be printed on a page of a periodical to be cut out, marked and mailed. Ordinarily this process reqiures considerable handling of the papers. Thereafter it is necessary for a number of clerks, secretaries or others to handle and rehandle the paper to read the ballots and record the votes manually, in some manner, for analysis and totalizing. This often results in tearing and loss of ballots and at best is time consuming and laborious. The results can not be known quickly even when a large number of persons are engaged in such a tallying operation. By following my method as herein shown and described, the results of a ballot or poll can be known within minutes of receiving the cards, usually by mail. The voter may use any relatively blunt implement, such as a lead pencil or a ball point pen to trace or ll in an outline printed on a page of a periodical or the like to a card, such as a standard postal card, placed back of the printed outline to receive an impression of the tracing by transfer through ink or the like placed on the next or backing page of the locus of printed outline. Cards with suc'n accurate markings thereon may be mailed to or deposited at a central bureau where they may be analyzed and tabulated by automatic photoelectrically responsive means.

It is, therefore, a principal object of this invention to provide a method of taking a public opinion poll which includes direct transfer of a vote from a printed page of a newspaper or other printed sheet to a postal card by tracing or filling in an outline printed on the page, thereby transferring an indication of the outline or a portion of the area therein to an accurately predetermined position on the card through the medium of suitable ink or other transfer material on the back of the page.

Still another object of this invention is the provision of a method in connection with a periodical or other publication for poll taking which includes delineating on the lower left corner of the obverse side of a folded sheet adjacent the gutter and lower margin thereof a coupon having indicia thereon arranged in rows normal to the gutter or fold and providing on the reverse side of said sheet, in exact back to back register, an area having transfer material in exact register with the indicia on the coupon, placing a postal card face down adjacent the transfer material with its normally upper margin in the gutter; folding portions of the coupon area rearwardly about the postal card at the right and the lower edge; marking suitable indica to transfer coded information to the postal card and mailing the card to an assembly and analyzing station for analysis and tallying on a machine having photosensitive sensing means conditioned for the indicia on the coupon.

Still another object of the invention is the provision 3,136,567 Patented June `9, 1964 ice of a method for poll taking in connection with a folded page of a newspaper or a bound-periodical such as a magazine, and which includes; delineating on the outer side of the folded page or the outer side of two facing pages of a bound periodical, a plurality of small discrete outlined areas thereon within an area delineated by a standard government issued postal card adjacent to the folded edge of the page; providing transfer material on the reverse side of the page which registers with the discrete small outlined areas; placing the postal card with one edge against the bottom of the fold or gutter between the two facing pages with its blank face toward the transfer material and a transverse edge in line with the end of the page or a marking on one of the two facing pages of the folded sheet or publication; folding either the page on which the small outlines and transfer material are provided or both facing pages about the other edge of the postal card parallel to the gutter to lock the card therebetween; and pressing within selected ones of the discrete outlined areas to transfer material to the postal card at registering areas thereon, and mailing the card to a station for automatically tallying on a machine having conventional scanning devices for sensing the location and occurrence of the transfer material on the postal card.

These and `other objects will become apparent from a consideration of the following specification taken with the accompanying drawings forming a part thereof.

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a newspaper or other periodical having the front page exposed and showing the application of this invention in the left lower corner, together with a corresponding portion of pages 2 and 3;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view as in FIG. l, with the rst sheet thrown back to expose pages 2 and 3 and showing features of this invention near the lower right corner of page 2, and the lower left corner of page 3;

FIG. 3 is an enlarged plan View of the lower left corner of page 1 showing a postal card positioned in the gutter fold;

FIG. 4 is a View in perspective of the lower left corner of page 1 with the folds formed about the postal card;

FIG. 5 is a section on the line 5-5 of FIG. 3;

FIG. 6 is a section on the line 6 6 of FIG. 4;

FIG. 7 is a fragmentary section on the line 7-7 of FIG. 4; and

FIG. 8 is a fragmentary perspective view of the feed portion of a scanning and analyzing device, showing feeding a marked card thereinto.

Referring now to FIG. 1, I show a representation of a newspaper or other publication 10 having page 1 thereof exposed. The lower left corner of this page may include the present invention in the form of a template or jig coupon 12 adapted to be cut out on the lines 14 and 16, as will later appear. In a predetermined part of this template or coupon, preferably at the left side thereof and adjacent the fold or gutter line 11, I lay out a rectangular area 18 the size of a standard postal card. In this rectangular area 18 I print one or more rows of indicia, three being shown in FIG. 1, with the rows normal to the fold or gutter of the periodical. The indicia in each row are labeled respectively yes, dont known and no in the circles delineating row I in FIGS. 1, 3 and 4. The circles being respectively numbered 20, Z2 and 24. Rows II and III contain similar circles 20', 22', 24', 20, 22 and 24" respectively. In the spaces about the rows I, II, and III, I print the questions, or digests thereof, on which a poll is to be taken. In the space 13 adjacent the portion 18, I may print instructions for balloting.

I prefer to call my method The Pulse of the People as indicated at 26 on FIG. 3. Other titles may be apo e9 propriate, and the balloting method may serve other purposes.

O11 page 2 of the paper 10', as shown in FIG. 2, I print the back 34 of the template or coupon l2. This portion 34 includes a rectangular area 36 corresponding to the rectangular area 18, and properly eollocated therewith. In this area 36, in exact register with the area 18 containing rows I, II and III of indicia on page l, I print black stripes or kbars 46, 4S and 5t). While a heavy application of newsprint ink will usually serve my purpose I have found and therefore prefer to use a special carbon black transfer ink which is particularly suited'for this purpose and is quick drying and somewhat glossy.

It being assumed that a public opinion poll is desired on some question or propositions; suitable information, instructions and regulations for voting are promulgated and printed in the space surrounding the area 18 on page l of the paper,` in the template coupon 12. The voting indicia Ztl, 22, 244, 267, 22', 24 and 20", 22 and 24 are printed in rows I, Il and III on the rectangular area or space 18. The indicia 20, 22 etc., as above described Vare, in this example preferably circles. They may, however, be in any other desirable form, such as rectangles, triangles, stars or mixture of symbols. On page 2, directly in register with the indicia or symbols 2t), 22, etc., stripes or bars 46, Sand St) are printed as explained above. The black stripes 46, 43 and 50 are printed in register with the rows I, II and III respectively of indicia on page l in the rectangular area 18.

The subscriber or other person desiring to vote in the projected poll will remove the coupon. After deciding Vwhich choice he shall record he will place a common postal card 52 face down adjacent the gutter 11 to register with the area 34, with the normally upper margin in the guter 11. The normally right hand edge of the card will be at the lower margin of the page, in exact register with the lower edge 19 of the coupon 12'. By placing the upper edge of the card in the gutter 11, the lines I, II and III being properly oriented normal to gutter 11, any symbols transferred to the card will be in proper register for analysis by a device conditioned for the indicia in said rows. After properly placing the postal card 52, the portion I3 of the coupon and a corresponding portion of the sheet, are folded rearwardly. The rigidity of the card relative to the paper of the publication makes it relatively easy to properly fold the paper about the card and accurately position same relative the coupon area 18. The lower edges or margins of the same pages pages are folded rearwardly and the card 52 is properly positioned. The voters choice is now made of record by tracing lor otherwise transferring coded indicia to the postal card 52 by the use of a blunt pointed implement, such as a pencil or a ball pen. The card 52 may be preaddressed or the voter may address it. He may sign it or not as required or suggested. After completing the operation, the card 52 is mailedv to a central station or bureau, where many such cards are assembled, and then analyzed on a device having photosensitive sensing means conditioned for the indicia and data on the delineated area 18 of the coupon'lZ.

Upon receipt of such cards, they may be successively faced properly and placed at the feed end 54 of a suitable tabulation mechanism S6, which mechanism is preferably provided with a photoelectric or other scanning mechanism responsive to the smudge marks on the cards. The tabulated results will thus be uniformly accurate and had within minutes of receipt of a batch of cards.

i In FIG. 2, the diagram 28 represents the position of a card 52 by showing the stamp 6i) and the description of the card 62, both in dotted lines to indicate that a properly positioned card is face down. The lower edge of Vthe printed page adjacent the margin is represented at 2S.

This may be the line between the page margin and the printed portion of the page.

It should be apparent, therefore, that I have developed a rapid and accurate method of obtaining a public opinion poll. Furthermore, itis much cheaper to accomplish than to take 'a poll by the employment of a small army of enumerators, and/or the employement of a host of persons to anlyze and tabulate the results of an ordinary newspaper poll wherein voters, clip, mark and directly mail coupons.

This application is a continuation-impart of my copending application, Serial No. 774,005, filed November 14, 1958, now abandoned.

I claim:

l. A method for taking a public opinion poll comprising the steps of printing a ballot on a page of a publication, coating the page on the reverse side with discrete areas of a transfer material to thereby form a coupon, removing the coupon area from the publication including corresponding parts containing the gutter, placing a post card adjacent saidy transfer material and in a predetermined position relative to the printed ballot, mark- Ving the ballot by pressing on selected and predetermined areas thereof whereby to transfer material to predetermined areas of the card, mailing the card to an assembly center, orienting all cards so received whereby all the transferred markings are in predetermined positions, feeding the oriented cards to a counting machine, and counting the markings in each area.

2. A method for taking a public opinion polly comprising the steps of printing a ballot on a page of a publication adjacent the gutter, coating the page on the reverse side with discrete areas of a transfer material to thereby form a coupon, removing the coupon area from the publication including corresponding parts containing the gutter, placing a post card against the gutter and adjacent said transfer material in a predetermined position relative to the printed ballot, marking the ballot by pressing on selected and predetermined areas thereof whereby to transfer material to predetermined areas of the card, mailing the card to an assembly center, orienting all cards so received whereby all the transferred markings are in predeterminedV positions, feeding the oriented cards to a counting machine, and counting the transferred markings.

References Cited in the file of this patent FOREIGN PATENTS 227,015 Great Britain Ian. 8, 1925

Claims (1)

1. A METHOD FOR TAKING A PUBLIC OPINION POLL COMPRISING THE STEPS OF PRINTING A BALLOT ON A PAGE OF A PUBLICATION, COATING THE PAGE ON THE REVERSE SIDE WITH DISCRETE AREAS OF A TRANSFER MATERIAL TO THEREBY FORM A COUPON, REMOVING THE COUPON AREA FROM THE PUBLICATION INCLUDING CORRESPONDING PARTS CONTAINING THE GUTTER, PLACING A POST CARD ADJACENT SAID TRANSFER MATERIAL AND IN A PREDETERMINED POSITION RELATIVE TO THE PRINTED BALLOT, MARKING THE BALLOT BY PRESSING ON SELECTED AND PREDETERMINED AREAS THEREOF WHEREBY TO TRANSFER MATERIAL TO PREDETERMINED AREAS OF THE CARD, MAILING THE CARD TO AN ASSEMBLY CENTER, ORIENTING ALL CARDS SO RECEIVED WHEREBY ALL THE TRANSFERRED MARKINGS ARE IN PREDETERMINE POSITIONS, FEEDING THE ORIENTED CARDS TO A COUNTING MACHINE, AND COUNTING THE MARKINGS IN EACH AREA.

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