Don’t let the internet decide
New York’s Ulster County’s second annual Ulster Votes I Voted Sticker Contest is another reminder of the silliness of asking the internet to make a decision for you.
During the month of July, people have the opportunity to vote for their favorite sticker design. This year, the contest had eight finalists from the county between the ages of 13 and 18. Hudson Rowan’s sticker has gathered about 51,300 votes, a whopping 93 percent of the total votes.
“Politics right now in the world is all kinds of crazy,” Rowan said, “and I feel like the creature that I drew kind of resembles the craziness of politics and the world right now.”
Are you surprised that Rowan’s image is the most popular choice by an overwhelming margin?
No other entry has received more than 3% of the vote.
Have the folks in Ulster County so soon forgotten Britain’s request for citizens to recommend and vote to name their new Antarctic survey vessel back in 2016?
The winner of that particular contest:
Boaty McBoatface.
The British decide to go in a different direction, naming it the very boring Sir David Attenborough.
When VHI viewers chose The Horace Mann School for the Deaf as Taylor Swift’s next concert location.
VHI threw out those votes after learning that 4chan and Reddit were involved in making a school for the deaf the top choice. Swift instead donated $10,000 to the school and Horace Mann students received tickets to Swift’s next local performance.
The internet has a way of complicating things if you’re not careful.
I actually voted for Hudson Rowan’s design, of course, but not because I wanted to be silly or annoy officials in Ulster County (though both of those reasons are completely valid). The purpose of the “I voted” sticker is to establish a cultural norm of voting by indicating to nonvoters how many of their neighbors completed their civic duty.
I think Hudson Rowan’s sticker will do that job best. It’s going to be hard to miss the sticker once planted on voter’s shirts and jackets. It may frighten small children and annoy some of the more conservative officials of Ulster County who are attached to traditional iconography, but I also think that it’ll do the job quite well.
