There’s something different about the 2020 election in Georgia: The iconic stickers given to each voter have a new look.
The change, which had gone unpublicized amid the unique conditions of pandemic voting and the historic early-voter turnout, is a departure from a design that has garnered widespread praise.
New elements have been added to the simple, beloved sticker that includes the words “I’m a Georgia Voter” inscribed on a peach. The field of white around the traditional design has been expanded. Underneath the peach, the phrase “I secured my vote!” appears in black, all in capital letters.
The change was not announced by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office. However, the messaging does match the office’s Secure the Vote initiative, a federally funded program created through the Help America Vote Act. Congress passed the act in 2002 to address improvements to voting systems and voter access after the unusually close, contentious 2000 presidential election.
“The phrase has a double meaning,” Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs said. “It shows that you voted in person, but it also speaks to election security that’s been a global story recently.” Fuchs said the phrase will remind voters about Georgia’s transition to its new voting system that involves scanning paper ballots.
As for the new stickers, they’re here to stay for the foreseeable future. “We ordered a few million of them,” Fuchs said. In future elections, voters are likely to see a mixture of the old and new stickers, depending on the county in which they vote. Fuchs said some counties were out of stickers and needed more, while some had a stockpile of the old stickers.
The new sticker design also includes a restoration of the old graphic, which had begun to get “fuzzy,” Fuchs said. The file for the original peach graphic, which was designed in the ’90s with the software of the time, had degraded over the years. An update was needed to save the original. “You’ll notice that it looks a lot crisper,” Fuchs said.
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