The Surprising Story Behind America’s Most Popular ‘I Voted’ Sticker

Over time, Boudreau transformed Intab’s existing three-product lineup, focused solely on absentee punch card voting, into a 1,000-product collection of important election supplies, ranging from ballot boxes to security seals to voting booths. Little did she know, the hand-drawn “I Voted sticker” — one of the first five products Boudreau created — would go on to become a top seller for all 28 years she ran the company.

By 2000, Intab was selling more than 100 million “I Voted” stickers in every midterm and general election year, and distributed them to nearly, if not all, 50 states, Boudreau says.

Showing pride in civic duty

The exact history of America’s “I Voted” sticker is murky, but Boudreau’s version wasn’t the first. Similar stickers started showing up in the early 1980s. One of the first mentions of a sticker that advertised voting can be found in a 1982 Miami Herald article, which noted how small businesses in Fort Lauderdale used the stickers to offer discounts to customers, Time Magazine reported.

Boudreau says she’d seen only one “I Voted” sticker before crafting her own. It was black-and-white, with the words “I Voted” beside two boxes with a checkmark and an X. While she felt the idea was a good one, she thought the design was “hardly inspiring to get out the vote,” so she set out to create a more patriotic version.

“It wasn't a 24-hour news cycle back then, so you could easily miss Election Day … and if you missed Election Day, you could regret it,” Boudreau says. The sticker “was really a get-out-the-vote product.”

In 1988, Janet Boudreau's company Intab was hired as an independent party to program and tabulate votes for the county and state level political caucuses in Washington.

Courtesy Janet Boudreau

For Boudreau, the sticker made a lot of sense from a business standpoint. It was an easy-to-make product that any election official could buy, no matter their location or state voting system. And election officials are generally always on a mission to raise awareness about voting, so there was a mass appeal.

These days, voters have come to expect their polling place to offer “I Voted” stickers, says Conway Belangia, an election official in Greenville County, South Carolina. She remembers a few years back when her county ran out, and an “uproar” ensued.

“[It] adds value for the voter as a [symbol] of pride in having performed a civic duty,” Belangia says.

For many people, getting a sticker is a part of voting.

“It feels like a tradition to me,” says Pennsylvania voter Judeth Hawkins, 73, who picks up a sticker every election, and often pastes it on her calendar once she returns home. “It promotes a camaraderie between people who have voted,” she says.

Changing the world through voting

While the sticker was part of a tactical business strategy for Boudreau, her inspiration for it runs much deeper. Born in August 1959, Boudreau recalls growing up in a time of unrest, with a lot of “generational friction around the Vietnam war and civil rights.” Frequently, her family would sit around the dinner table and discuss the importance of voting. When Boudreau turned 18, casting her first ballot felt like a landmark moment.

“There are limited ways that a single individual can shape and change the world,” Boudreau says. “You do it through conversation. You do it through writing, you do it through protest. And you do it through voting.”

Over the years, Boudreau has watched the function of the “I Voted” sticker shift. With the rise of the internet and 24-hour media cycles, she sees it serving less as a reminder that it’s Election Day and more as a conversation starter.

“It's patriotism without any proclamation that is divisive,” says Boudreau.

Boudreau sold Intab to two employees in 2015. These days, she works as an executive coach to other business owners. But the sticker remains a part of who she is. Every time Boudreau goes to the polls, her fiancé enthusiastically tells people that he’s marrying the woman who created the “I Voted” sticker. It’s a legacy her friends and family love to share.

On Election Day, as she exits her polling station in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Boudreau will reach for a sticker, whether it's her rippling flag design or another version. She always does. And like millions of other voters across the country, she’ll wear it with pride, often snapping a selfie on her phone camera.

“Grown adults enjoy getting stickers. That just makes me happy,” Boudreau says.

Janet Boudreau holds the “I Voted” stickers she invented.

William Crooks