Those stickers you grab as you are leaving the polling place have become known in recent years as a showcase of Alaska patriotism and original artwork. Tiffany Montemayor from the Division says this time the appeal for artwork went to students.
“We sent that to every school district and principal and art teacher and homeschool and other organizations in the whole state. We got in over 160 artworks submissions,” she said.
Next came the process of narrowing those submission down to the ones now posted on the division’s website. The division grouped the drawings, many of them in crayon, into five regions of Alaska. Each artist’s name and hometown is listed with their artwork.
“Oh, gosh. Oh my gosh. It was, it was very hard. If we could have had all of them in there, I think, I think we would have,” she said.
And now it is the voters’ turn. We select the winning artwork in two elections, just like we will for the 2022 August primary and November general election.
"We narrowed it down by region and voters will get the opportunity to vote for their one favorite one from each region on our website. You pick your one favorite," Montemayor said.
We have two weeks to complete this step, which ends March 22.
With this exercise, the division accomplishes two objectives – it gets the final artwork for the voting sticker, and it trains all of us in Alaska’s new Nonpartisan Top Four Primary and the Ranked-Choice Voting General Election.
This is the primary election round. And once voting is closed in two weeks, the top four vote getters will move on to the general election. And so that's exactly the way it's going to work in August with our actual primary election.
After that, the top four vote-getters from each of the five regions will advance to the Ranked Choice Voting General Election, where voters can rank their favorites just like they will in the 2022 General Election.
“And from there, people can rank their favorite stickers in order of preference. Which I think will also be pretty hard.”
One way this will be very different than an actual statewide election is that we can watch the votes tally up in real time. The division’s mock election app on the website https://elections.alaska.gov/ also prevents us from voting more than once on our favorite sticker.
Some Alaska student artwork will also be chosen for the state’s Official Election Pamphlets.
“I Voted” sticker artwork submissions came from students ages 5 – 13 and OEP submissions from ages 14 – 18. All entries, including those that did not win, will be featured in a special section of the 2022 Official Election Pamphlets.
“ We've been doing some really cool sticker designs, the last few elections. And, um, I think this one is probably going to be our favorite yet,” Montemayor said.
There is a lot of serious election business right now – with the United States Census figures and reapportionment, many voters will be in new districts. The division wants voters to go on the website at https://elections.alaska.gov/ and check their registration, which might have changed.
The Division will send out new voter ID cards across the state.
