Morgan Township sixth grader wins ‘I voted’ sticker contest

Sixth grader Claire Metzger is years away from qualifying to vote but she may be inspiring people all over Porter County to do so with her winning “I voted” sticker design that will be given out to all the county’s voters until the supply runs out.

“Some people were shocked because I told them today,” Claire said Tuesday of sharing the good news with her classmates.

It’s not the first time the 4-H member has entered a drawing in a fair competition. Last year she entered a pencil drawing of a horse head and this year she incorporated some color and shading into her drawing of a cow skull.

But to win out over 500 other kids and have her design of an eagle superimposed over the United States flag printed on a run of 100,000 stickers had her mouth gaping.

“You almost forgot to turn it in too,” her mom Julie Metzger reminded her. “It was sitting on the counter” when the bus rolled up the road the day it was due.

The Morgan Township Middle School student was one of almost 500 students who submitted a design last spring in the contest that was open to all Porter County fifth graders. Staff at the Elections & Registration Office plastered the entries all over their office walls and winnowed them down to 20 semi-finalists.

The bipartisan election board then narrowed the field to five finalists. The students and their designs played a big part in getting Porter County fairgoers comfortable with the Express Vote machines and DS200 vote counters they’ll use in the upcoming general election. Summer fair visitors to the Expo Center East who wanted to help choose a winner had to do so on the machines.

Tara Graff, assistant director of Porter County Elections & Registration, said her office’s theme for its fair booth was “Small Town, Big Vote.”

“It’s just nice to have everyone familiar with how the system works,” she said of using the sticker contest to achieve that end. “It was just really nice to see a huge jump in the interaction between the fairgoers and the voting machines.”

Voter registration ends Monday at the end of the business day, which is 4:30 p.m. in person at the Elections & Registration Office or 11:59 p.m. online.

Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.