“This is how we all feel about politics right now,” a Twitter user wrote of one submission for a New York county’s “I voted” sticker design contest.
Ashley Dittus, an election official in Ulster County, N.Y., vividly remembers her excitement when the first submission for this year’s countywide youth “I voted” sticker design contest appeared in her email this spring.
The entry, from Hudson Rowan, 14, was an electric concoction of colors: a pink and purple and turquoise creature with a wild bloodshot stare, a toothy neon grin and spiderlike legs. To the right, scrawled in red letters: I VOTED.
Ms. Dittus, the county’s Democratic commissioner of elections, immediately printed out the design and started showing it to people in her office. Everyone’s reaction was the same, she said: It made them smile.
“This design is colorful and crazy and kind of weird,” she said. “It’s just not what you think of when you think of a traditional ‘I voted’ sticker, so we all kind of love it.”
The Republican election commissioner, John Quigley, agreed. “I found it best when someone tweeted, ‘This is how we all feel about politics right now,’” he wrote in an email.
The response to his submission surprised Hudson, who will start his first year at Rondout Valley High School this fall.
After his mother persuaded him to enter the competition, he said in an interview, he didn’t dwell much on it, thinking his interpretation wasn’t “classically” patriotic but wanting it to reflect his style anyway.
The creature in his drawing has been described as many things, he said, but he’s not exactly sure how to describe it himself. Besides, he said, “it’s more just for the individual to decide what it is.”
“Politics right now in the world is all kinds of crazy,” he added, “and I feel like the creature that I drew kind of resembles the craziness of politics and the world right now.”
Whatever it is, the “chaotic, random lines” of his drawing, as he describes it, have resonated with many online.
Since voting for the winning entry began in July, Hudson’s entry has received more than 158,500 votes, out of the about 169,500 total votes cast — completely overtaking last year’s roughly 2,200 votes. The county has a population of about 180,000 people and about 122,000 active registered voters, but the contest is not limited to county residents.
Hudson’s mother, Molly Rowan, said in an interview that she had encouraged him to enter the competition as a way to get him more civically engaged. “I just thought it would be a good way to be involved with politics and a community at the age that he’s at,” she said.
“Hudson has always drawn with a lot of feeling,” she said. “I love that he stayed true to his style.”
Hudson is one of six finalists whose logos are up for a public vote that will close on July 29. The five runners-up will have their designs printed on stickers for the special election in August. But only the winning logo, which will be announced on Aug. 1, will receive an award from the Ulster County Legislature and appear on stickers distributed in the county’s general election on Nov. 8.
Launched last year as part of the election office’s youth engagement initiatives, the contest is open to the county’s 13- to 18-year-olds, Ms. Dittus said, with submissions accepted from early April through the end of June.
For its first two years, it was slow to take off, with only 14 submissions this year and 12 last year — until interest in Hudson’s design exploded online.
On top of coverage from local and national media, the design has garnered a number of fans on Twitter and TikTok.
Ms. Dittus said she hopes that the attention will lead to increased interest from teenagers in the county around voting and that more youth-oriented initiatives will be launched by elections offices across the country.
“We just want to leave our mark in the realm of civic engagement so that people know that, No. 1, that we exist and that we’re here as a resource for all voters and people that are interested in voting,” she said.
As for Hudson, he’s planning on spending the summer before starting the ninth grade visiting his grandparents, hanging out with his friends and dabbling in new drawings.
“I’m trying to think up some ideas,” he said. “You’ll see.”
Ana Ley contributed reporting.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
