Zohran Mamdani’s sticker contest is the perfect kind of political engagement bait

Last month, more than 450 artists designed a custom sticker to support Zohran Mamdani’s New York City mayoral campaign—and, pretty soon, you’re going to be seeing the winning design everywhere.

On September 25, Mamdani’s campaign announced through an Instagram video that it would be hosting a sticker design contest to get New Yorkers registered to vote before the October 25 deadline. The competition gave followers just 36 hours to submit their designs, during which hundreds of pieces of art flooded the campaigns’ submission portal. Now that a winner has been selected, anyone who is registered can submit a form on Mamdani’s website and pick up the sticker at one of Mamdani’s canvases or volunteer events.

Mamdani’s campaign took a page out of other regions’ playbooks through the sticker design contest, which, in recent years, have proven to be both effective fodder for social media discussion and a real avenue to boost voter engagement. It’s part of his larger goal to get more New Yorkers, and especially young people, registered to vote—a mission that, so far, has yielded impressive results.

Why voting sticker contests are on the rise

Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has run his campaign with an internet-savvy eye for design. In the election run-up, he masterfully shot candid short-form video content to reach young voters and establish himself as an authentic candidate for the people. His campaign posters balanced a hand-drawn quality with a healthy sprinkling of nostalgia, presenting Mamdani as less corporate and more down-to-earth than his rivals. These aesthetic choices helped pave the way for him to defeat Andrew Cuomo in the primaries.

Now that the November 6 election is fast approaching, Mamdani’s campaign is using those same creative sensibilities to prepare New Yorkers for the polls. 

Most Americans will be familiar with the classic red-white-and-blue “I Voted” stickers, and for good reason. According to a 2016 study by four researchers at Berkeley, Harvard, and the University of Chicago, we’re more motivated to vote when we know others will know that we voted. These now-ubiquitous stickers are a key way to signal our civic involvement. Recently, though, another kind of voting sticker has taken center-stage.

In 2022, Ulster County in New York decided to forgo the traditional sticker, opting instead to solicit sticker designs from local artists. The public overwhelmingly voted for a crazed-looking monster spider, designed by a 14-year-old, which became an immediate viral sensation. Since then, other local governments have similarly turned sticker design into a contest, from Denver to South Dakota and San Luis Obispo County, California. Last May, Michigan residents selected a image of a werewolf ripping off its shirt in front of an American flag to represent that they’d performed their civic duty.

Submissions to Mamdani’s call for designs included a giant pigeon head, a psychedelic interpretation of Mamdani’s face, and a swaggering NYC alley cat. Mamdani himself chose his 10 favorite designs before allowing the public to vote on the winner. 

Nearly 7,000 votes later, the winner, created by local artist Nishan Patel, was chosen. Fittingly, the design features an NYC bodega with a cat in the window and the signage, “Vote for Zohran.”

How Mamdani is boosting voter turnout

Historically, sticker design competitions have been used to boost final voter turnout on election day. Instead, Mamdani’s campaign opted to catch potential supporters sooner by using the contest to encourage New Yorkers to register to vote—a goal that’s been central to the campaign’s success so far. 

According to an analysis from The New York Times, published on June 29, Mamdani has already changed the electoral map. In the 14 days leading up to the registration deadline for the Democratic primary, about 37,000 people registered to vote, compared with about 3,000 people in the same period in 2021, the publication found.

“Mr. Mamdani’s campaign had focused on registering voters, and he also appears to have drawn thousands of voters to the primary who did not vote four years ago,” the report reads.

Mamdani’s campaign told Fast Company that it even believes certain social media videos may have driven spikes in voter registrations. After Mamdani posted a call-to-action in mid-June specifically encouraging New Yorkers to register, registrations shot up. While such data is correlational and not necessarily causal, the campaign says that the narrow timeframe suggests a likely connection.

As “Vote for Zohran” stickers begin to appear around the city, the design competition may prove to be another way that Mamdani convinces New Yorkers to get to the polls.

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