Durham sticks with ‘No Bull. I Voted’ for 2022 election. Meet the designer.
The software designer who created Durham’s coveted voting sticker said the idea came from a place familiar to many in the summer of 2020 — intense, stuck-at-home boredom.
“I was going stir crazy like everyone else. I said, you know, I’m just gonna do it,” Mark Congiusta told The News & Observer. “And I got hit with this idea, and I banged it out in literally like 10 minutes.”
The sticker incorporates the vibrant red, yellow and blue of the city’s flag and — in homage to the Bull City — reads “No Bull. I Voted” in all capital letters. Congiusta drew a bull at the center aside the seven stars of the Taurus constellation.
“Surprisingly, or maybe not, it really gets people excited about voting,” Elections Director Derek Bowens said of the sticker. “It’s a great contest, really engages the community.”
Congiusta said he felt called to the contest because, in his family, voting is a very big deal.
“The world back then was in a very strange state. These people were attacking voting, and I take voting pretty seriously. We go as a family every year,” Congiusta said. “You know, that’s bull that people would think that. I was drawing a bull and I just kind of had a flash of inspiration: ‘No bull. I voted.’”
Bowens said because of the sticker’s popularity, they didn’t hold a new contest this year for adults, though another will be held in 2024.
They did, however, hold one for students. High schooler Annabel Swansey’s winning sticker is given to kids who show up to vote with an adult.
Congiusta won $500 for his design, which he said he donated to the League of Women Voters.
As design inspirations, he lists architect Frank Lloyd Wright, product designer Dieter Rams and cartoonist Robert Crumb.
How to vote in Durham
Nearly 64,000 people have already voted early in Durham County, about 1 in 4 registered voters, according to the Thursday night tally.
Saturday is the last day of early voting.
Pick from eight early voting locations and show up by 7:30 p.m. Friday or between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday.
Bowens said based on the turnout he’s seen so far, he expects a pretty busy Election Day.
Polls are open on Tuesday from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Find your precinct’s polling place on the state Board of Elections website.
Congiusta said he and the family will be making their trek to Forest Hills Elementary School on Election Day.
“It’s our constitutional duty, right? Everyone should do it,” he said.
