Janet Boudreau created the I Voted sticker in 1987

Janet Boudreau created the "I Voted" sticker in 1987 to replace a design she found uninspiring. She designed the oval flag symbol after seeing a Washington state county use a simple black-and-white square with an X on Election Day.

Boudreau owned an election supply and voting equipment company at the time. She described voting as the right and duty of American citizens to share their voice. The original county sticker irritated her because it failed to capture the importance of the day.

"This is the one day that we have to amplify what we want our world to look like, and it just irritated me and my folks, too, when people would say, oh I forgot the election," Boudreau said.

She went home and used blue and red pens to draw an ellipse with a waving flag. The new design started in a few counties before spreading rapidly across the country. Boudreau recalled the growth of the sticker in the early 1990s.

"By 1992, wow, it was nuts!" Boudreau said.

Election Day memorabilia has existed since the 1920s, when women’s suffrage supporters used pins, buttons, and ribbons. The sticker format took off in the 1990s. It has since led to state-specific images, patches for future voters, and contests that invite children to design their own versions.

Boudreau said the sticker serves as a badge of honor. She hopes it continues to act as a promise and a call to action every election cycle. "So get out and vote and then spread the word," Boudreau said.