The streets of St. Louis are full of shirts proudly bearing ‘I Voted’ stickers. People are offering donuts and discounts to anyone with the voters’ badge of honor (even though that’s technically illegal). But not many of those stickers are from Soulard’s precinct in the 7th ward.
According to 7th Ward Democratic Committeewoman Marie Ceselski, her precinct ran out of stickers before 10 a.m.—which, by her memory, has never happened. Late in the day, sure, the stickers are scarce, but they usually last more than four hours.
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She tweets:
The budget cut comment is a joke—there’s no telling what actually caused the sticker shortage. “There cannot possibly be that much money in stickers,” she writes. But the stickers really did run out.
“The thing about the sticker is that it is a badge of honor,” she writes. “When you wear it the rest of the day, it reminds others to go vote.” Ceselski says that when she went to a convenience store, a clerk who knows her asked if she’d voted. Ceselski said yes—and the clerk wanted to know where her sticker was.
But the sticker situation didn’t dampen the spirits of voters, which Ceselski says remain high. “Everyone was taking it in stride, making jokes about it. I offered to go home and try my hand at arts and crafts to create some,” Ceselski writes. “Maybe we’ll do arts and crafts ‘I Voted’ stickers for the March [mayoral] primary.”
Update: As of 3:30 p.m., Ceselski reports, her precinct has replenished its sticker bank.
