The American Congress on Surveying and Mapping and the National Society of Professional Surveyors, national associations for professional surveyors, note that the assertion from Sarah Palin’s staff that the images on her SarahPAC map are really “surveyor marks” is itself “off the mark”. 

The American Congress on Surveying and Mapping and the National Society of Professional Surveyors, national associations for professional surveyors, note that the assertion from Sarah Palin’s staff that the images on her SarahPAC map are really “surveyor marks” is itself “off the mark."

Chairman of the ACSM/NSPS Joint Government Affairs Committee, John Matonich, PS stated that the actual connection to surveying represented by the marks on the SarahPAC map is that their appearance is similar to the view one would see when looking through the scope of some surveying instruments, which have horizontal and vertical crosshairs used for sighting. 

Surveyors marks (often referred to as “monuments”) are used to identify a specific location on the surface of the earth, representing either/or its horizontal and vertical geographic position, and often including some information about the data associated with the mark. Typically, these marks do not resemble the ones shown on the SarahPAC map. 

“To claim that the crosshairs on the SarahPAC map are really “surveying marks” is hard to understand," Matonich says. 

For more information, visit www.acsm.net.