I know that a variety of rulers have been handed out at comps and there is some wonkyness.
Just to be sure though, range 3 is NOT the same as red & blue distance?

Range 3 is ~18.4cm
Red & Blue (Medium range) is ~18.7cm

At least on my cardboard ruler.

Has there been any official announcement of the intended measurements?

I see now that this has been asked before here:

@Kaiju What did you end up doing for the ranges?..

The referred to post is not entirely accurate IMO.

These are the measurements I did (using several different rulers) and used for the Vassal module:

Note that the RED/DIST 5 is the ideal 12 inch range; in practice the cutting process shaves off a tiny bit (which also affects black/distance 1).

So blue range is not exactly equal to distance 3, but pretty close. 2 is fairly close to black. 5 and red equal, obviously.

In practice range is measured from cardboard, distance from plastic base, so that adds a little twist as well.