Before 'I Voted' Stickers, Michigan Voters Wore Paper Tags

Four red, white and blue "I Voted" stickers on a navy background, with a small VoteSticker.org credit.

Four VoteSticker.org digital "I Voted" sticker designs. Graphic: VoteSticker.org.

VoteSticker.org looks at a 1918 newspaper notice and a 1922 account of tags handed out at Grand Rapids polls

I hadn't thought much about what people wore before stickers. Finding the paper tags made me curious, and I wanted readers to be able to see the original sources for themselves.”

— Garrett Nafzinger, founder of Garrett Digital

AUSTIN, TX, UNITED STATES, November 2, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Before "I voted" stickers, some voters wore paper tags. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, women handed them out at the polls in 1919 and helped pin them on voters. The message: "I am an American. I voted. Did you?"

VoteSticker.org, a free, nonpartisan site built by Austin SEO consultancy Garrett Digital, offers digital "I voted" stickers and links to official election offices. It has expanded its history page to cover these earlier tags and the records behind them.

The earliest record of these tags the site found is a notice in the October 31, 1918 issue of the Lowell Ledger, a weekly paper near Grand Rapids. It reported that a local Americanization society had started "a movement to tag every voter" and planned to hand out the tags at the November election.

A 1922 book by John Palmer Gavit, Americans by Choice, describes the tags in use at the city's March and April 1919 elections. The only way to get one was to vote. Afterward, schoolchildren collected the tags, and the schools with the highest totals won flags.

"I built VoteSticker.org because I wanted an 'I voted' sticker to share after voting early in Texas, as an easy reminder for friends and family to vote," said Garrett Nafzinger, founder of Garrett Digital and creator of VoteSticker.org. "I hadn't thought much about what people wore before stickers. Finding the paper tags made me curious, and I wanted readers to be able to see the original sources for themselves."

The history page also covers a separate 1920 student election at Ben Blewett Junior High School in St. Louis. According to a St. Louis Board of Education report, the school's print shop made "I have voted" tags for students who voted.

The page follows the story to Janet Boudreau's 1987 waving-flag oval for election supply company Intab and notes what is still unknown, including who printed the first adhesive "I Voted" sticker.

Visitors can choose free digital stickers for every state and Washington, D.C., in English and Spanish, or make their own. No account or email address is required. State pages link to official election offices and to official ballot trackers where a state has one.

Custom stickers are made in the visitor's browser, not uploaded to the site. VoteSticker.org is not a government website, and its stickers are not official election-office designs or proof of voting.

About Garrett Digital

Garrett Digital is an Austin, Texas SEO and search marketing consultancy led by Garrett Nafzinger. It built and maintains VoteSticker.org as a free public resource.

Garrett Nafzinger
Garrett Digital
+1 512-730-1872
hello@garrettdigital.com
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