Local ‘I Voted’ Sticker Fashion Critic Issues Annual Rankings: ‘This Year’s Font Is Doing Nothing for Anyone’

MAPLEWOOD — Renowned sticker critic Helen Vasquez released her annual “I Voted” sticker fashion rankings Tuesday, awarding this year’s design a C-minus and declaring that “the font is doing nothing for anyone.”

Vasquez, who holds the self-appointed title of Chief Aesthetics Officer of Civic Adhesives, has reviewed polling-place stickers for eleven years from her kitchen table, using what she calls “a rigorous 40-point rubric and strong opinions.”

“The kerning is lazy. The flag graphic looks tired. And the adhesive?” Vasquez said, peeling a sticker off her cardigan with visible disappointment. “It gave up by noon. A sticker that cannot survive a full news cycle is not a sticker. It is a suggestion.”

This year’s design — a waving flag above the words “I VOTED” in navy blue — scored points for colorfastness but lost heavily in the originality category. “It is the same flag as last year,” Vasquez said. “I checked. I keep them all in a binder. Do not test me on this.”

The all-time highest score remains the 2019 sticker, which featured a gold starburst and what Vasquez described as “adhesive with ambition.” The lowest was 2021’s “beige oval incident,” which she called “a crime against lapels.”

County Clerk Wanda Brill defended the design, noting it was selected by a committee of fourteen. “Fourteen people approved this sticker,” Brill said. “That is either democracy at work or a cry for help.”

Vasquez files every sticker in a binder system organized by “adhesive integrity and emotional impact,” with the 2023 design filed under “tried its best.” She was offered a seat on next year’s design committee and declined. “Critics don’t create,” she said. “We preserve the standard. Also, the committee meets at 8 a.m., and I am not a morning person. The stickers deserve better than a tired critic with a lukewarm take.”

Vasquez’s newsletter gained 200 subscribers this week after her “beige oval incident” retrospective went locally viral. “People remember the beige oval,” she said. “Trauma bonds an audience.” She is considering a podcast — “Stick Talk.” The pilot episode is forty minutes on adhesive. “People said it couldn’t sustain forty minutes,” she said. “People were wrong.”

Vasquez’s binder has been appraised — “for insurance purposes,” she clarified — at $400, “mostly sentimental value.” The 2019 gold starburst remains the crown jewel. “I’ve been offered $50 for it,” she said. “I laughed for a full minute.”

Vasquez’s rankings, published in her newsletter “Stick With It” (circulation: 60, mostly family), have become an unlikely Election Day tradition. “People think it’s about the sticker,” she said. “It was never about the sticker. It is entirely about the sticker.”