For Miami-Dade, a new “I Voted” sticker

Miami-Dade’s “I Voted” sticker has had a multicultural makeover.

The adhesive acknowledgment voters receive for actually turning out to the polls has long been a modest white sticker with a simple exclamation: “I Voted Today!” But on Friday, elections officials unveiled a more elaborate sticker set for its big reveal in the upcoming March 15 presidential primary.

The old sticker was oval, the new one round. The old one only bore a splash of blue-and-green in the Miami-Dade County. The new one uses a red-white-and-blue color scheme. The old one floated its lone slogan on white space; the new one includes stars and a hashtag, #iamelectionready.

And while the old sticker stuck with English, the new one says “I Voted!” in Spanish and Creole as well.

“Every single thing we do is in three languages,” said deputy elections supervisor Carolina Lopez, referring to the county’s ballots, voter instructions and other materials. “Why not the sticker?”

The result is a much a larger sticker: two of the old ones can fit on a single new one. Even with the larger space, Miami-Dade dropped the “today” reference in the new sticker. Now it’s just: “I Voted!”

Lopez could not say exactly when the old version went into service, but said it has been around since at least 2008. She projects the department will hand out more than 200,000 of the stickers once early voting for the primary starts Feb. 29.

The sticker reveal came during a media event at the county’s Elections headquarters in Doral. Elections officials emphasized the party-only rules for the upcoming presidential primary, where Republican and Democratic candidates will compete for their parties’ Florida delegates.

The primary election is open to all voters in Miami, Miami Beach and Surfside, thanks to municipal items on the ballot. Otherwise, the March 15 primary is only open to registered Democrats and Republicans. The last day to register for the election (and be sticker eligible) is Feb. 16, which is also the deadline for changing party affiliation.

This story was originally published January 29, 2016 at 1:49 PM with the headline "For Miami-Dade, a new “I Voted” sticker."