When Tompkins County voters leave the polls on election day this year, they will bear stickers featuring lakeside views, beavers in patriotic suits and cupcakes for the United States’ 250th birthday.
These sticker designs won the Tompkins County Board of Elections' annual sticker design contest, an initiative started in 2023 to encourage young people to express creativity while learning about elections and civic participation in Tompkins County. The 2026 winners were announced on Aug. 27.
Out of the record-breaking 169 submissions, almost 100 more than in 2025, the selected winners were ninth grader Leo Walsh and fifth graders Fiona Beary and Addie Miller. Walsh’s “I Voted” sticker will be distributed to voters while Beary and Miller’s “Future Voter” stickers will be given to minors who accompany family members to the polls. This is the first year where there has been a tie for the “Future Voter” stickers.
Walsh’s “I Voted” design features a scenic lake view with an American flag backdrop. Miller’s is a patriotic cupcake decorated for the United States’ 250th birthday. Beary’s depicts a beaver in a festive suit, holding a cupcake and a flag with fireworks in the background.
The winners will be honored at the Sept. 15 Tompkins County Legislature meeting.
“The record number of submissions shows how this contest can bring young people and the broader community into the democratic process,” Democratic Elections Commissioner Stephen DeWitt said in a Tompkins County press release.
“Each of these designs brings creativity and personality to an important civic tradition,” Republican Elections Commissioner Alanna Congdon said in the press release.
For Beary, a student at Lansing Middle School, winning this contest was a complete surprise. She entered on a whim, after her teacher encouraged her whole class to design something for a homework assignment.
“I was so happy, I was dancing all around the room,” she told The Sun. “It was just a shock.”
She was even happier to have shared the win with her close friend and classmate, Miller.
Miller and Beary have been close friends for years and share a love for art. This isn’t the first time both girls have been recognized for their designs. The two are both winners of the Lansing Community Libary’s Logo Design Contest — Beary having won in 2026, and Miller in 2025.
For Miller, who wants to be an engineer or a doctor when she grows up, art is a way to connect with people.
“I’ve been artistic my whole life,” she told The Sun. “My grandma was an artist and I always drew with her.”
Miller chose her cupcake design to honor the nation’s birthday and wanted to “do something different” than the typical voting stickers.
Beary, who loves all things nature-related, wanted to feature a design involving an animal that represents the state.
After deliberating over many species, she chose the state’s official animal, the beaver. She dressed the beaver in a top hat, gave him a cupcake and put him in patriotic clothes because “as it’s America’s birthday, [the beaver] might as well dress up a bit.”
There are a host of things that Beary wants voters and their families to feel when they see her sticker. The beaver represents hard work and community as well as a celebration of the nation’s semisesquicentennial.
But most importantly, Beary wants voters “to feel happy and that they really could do anything, because if a beaver can be in a patriotic suit and win a sticker contest, people really can do anything they want.”
Valencia Massaro is a member of the Class of 2029 in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She is a senior writer for the news department and can be reached at vmassaro@cornellsun.com.
