The “I Voted” Sticker

I’m a traditionalist. I drove over to Clark Springs Elementary (formerly Fox Elementary) and cast my vote in the gymnasium. No wait, and the poll workers outnumbered the voters 3-1. The nice lady, who works the polls every year, handed me an “I voted” sticker. Because they have changed my polling place three times in the last five years, I was happy to see a familiar face.

“I think we’re going to be stuck with a ton of these,” she said, pointing to a large table full of perfectly positioned stickers. “Turnout has been very light.”

Yet vote counts, I am told, were extremely high across the Commonwealth. I didn’t see many “I voted” stickers on actual voters this week. I wore mine proudly on Tuesday. According to 2024 polling data, more than 60% of voters cast their votes early or by mail, and 39% showed up on election day. 

Political buttons showing your support for a candidate or incumbent have been around since George Washington’s inauguration in 1789. The button said “Long live the President.” The “I voted” sticker is a more recent phenomenon and doesn’t take a stand one way or the other.

In 1987, a designer named Janet Boodreau created the iconic “I voted” sticker, working for an election supply company called Intab. By the end of that decade, the stickers became incredibly popular.

The sticker transformed voting from a private act into something visible: when a person leaves the polling place and wears the sticker, others see it — this builds a sense of communal participation. “Everybody’s doing it.”

It also taps into a concept called “social proof”: seeing someone wearing a sticker is a reminder that voting happens, and it prompts others to vote as well. Voter participation had dipped to historically low levels in the 1970s, and I believe those little stickers played a part in the trend of higher voter turnouts we’ve experienced in the last two decades.

It’s become part of the American election-day culture: people take selfies with their stickers, businesses offer incentives (like the 20% discount at Texas Inn) for voters wearing them, and localities hold design contests for new sticker versions. 

With early voting, mail-in ballots, and a lack of stickers, where is the new “social proof?” Snapping a selfie at your mailbox and labelling it “I mailed in my constitutionally guaranteed right to vote.” 

Win, lose, or draw, I hope that you voted this week; sticker or no sticker.

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