Phoenix or Miami? Origin of 'I Voted' sticker uncertain 33 — or 36 — years later

Adorning shirt fronts and handbags, ballcaps and briefcases, those quarter-sized stickers proudly declaring "I voted" have been a fixture across the United States for 33 years.

Or is it 36? 

Like everything in politics, it seems, the origin of the prized "I voted" sticker remains in dispute and runs either through Arizona or Florida. 

The Phoenix Association of Realtors long has claimed to have been the first to hand out the prized stickers — and voters have a 1985 ballot issue about infrastructure to thank. 

Former Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza, who was president of the Realtor board, wanted a bond to pass that would facilitate expanding Valley freeway systems, according to Arizona Republic archives.

Back then, morning voter turnout at most elections was strong. But there was a decided drop-off in the afternoon. That was something a not-so-subtle reminder adhered to everyone walking down the street or stuck on those milling around the office might remedy. 

So was born the printed sticker to distribute at polling sites.

"We were absolutely the first ones in the country," Rimsza said, according to Republic archives. "Back in 1985-86, I went to the national Realtors convention, (and) no one had heard of any stickers in their communities."

But when is anything in politics settled so easily? 

The origins of the sticker might, in fact, might have predated Phoenix's experiment by three years, according to archived reporting from the Miami Herald, as reported by Time magazine online. 

That report detailed an Oct. 29, 1982, article about bargains and giveaways businesses were offering to those who displayed their "I voted" sticker at checkout.

It makes it among the earliest incarnations of the sticker that would go national by the end of the decade and the start of the George H.W. Bush administration. 

Three decades later, scores of billboards, breathless television coverage and endless social media outrage have replaced the sticker as a (not-so) subtle reminder to vote. 

But it's clear the sticker — maybe now captured in a selfie — remains a badge of honor.