Fixing Oregon’s “I Voted” Stickers

Here in Oregon, everyone votes by mail. This is great because you can vote in a bathrobe and slippers, taking your time to research candidates and measures — all over a cup of tea. You then drop it in the mail or take it to an official dropbox, and you’re done. The one problem with this scheme is that “I Voted” stickers are nowhere to be found. It’s a silly thing, but something I (and others) miss from our home states. You’d typically find those at the polling place. It would be fun to find one in your ballot package, but I don’t have control over that.

Instead, I decided I’d do something fun that I do have control over. I ordered a roll of 500 stickers, cut them into strips of 6, and headed to my local library — the nearest ballot drop-off. At every street corner along the greenway I stapled two strips of stickers to the phone poles. Closer to the library, I stapled a lot more.

My hope here is twofold: First, voters grab a sticker and use it to remind or encourage others to vote. Second, Oregonians either see the stickers in the wild or see this blog post and decide to do the same in their own neighborhoods. I do have another roll and will go back in a week or two to refresh the sticker caches.

If you’re in Oregon, my hope is that you see this and decide to do the same. If not this year, maybe next? Put a reminder in your phone to order stickers early.

Posted in: Portland Projects

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Brian Enigma

Brian Enigma is a Portlander, manipulator of atoms & bits, minor-league blogger, and all-around great guy. He typically writes about the interesting “maker” projects he's working on, but sometimes veers off into puzzles, software, games, local news, and current events.

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