Nonpartisan, sentient, life-size ballot wants you to vote safely

A light-green rectangle envelope, with “Official Election Mail” splashed across it, jovially jogged toward Tempe City Hall last Tuesday. A head peeked out of the mail-in ballot costume as it passed a sign pointing visitors to the nearby ballot drop box inside. His name is, appropriately enough, Envelope. 

But the green mail-in ballot can’t actually be dropped off in the box before 7 p.m. on November 3. Instead, Arizona State University professor and artist Gregory Sale is the one inside the costume. 

Over the last two weeks, the ASU arts professor embodied the character Envelope, which artist Abby Galvin created six years earlier to promote voting, especially among young people, in Maricopa County. In the few-second video posted on Instagram, Sale swings open the door on the last day voters can mail back their ballots to promote early voting. 

“Envelope is a state government functionary,” Sale told Phoenix New Times about the character. “It doesn’t get up on a soapbox and make a speech like a politician, but Envelope also has a life and is funny.”

Sale brought the character, made of painted canvas and about half an inch of lightweight white foam, back to life this election season. In mid-October, He spoke at ASU’s Northlight Gallery panel on voting in America, which featured an artist who has photographed ballot booths for decades. Sale represented the nonpartisan #ArtistsWhoVote collective at the panel by donning the titular deadpan, yet playful, character.

When attendees addressed Sale as “Professor” or “Gregory,” he’d respond with, “‘Hey, you know, I’ve seen you in your bathrobe,’ and ‘you licked me at your kitchen table’.” 

“I showed up on the panel as Envelope,” he said. “I didn’t speak as Professor Gregory Sale. I spoke as Envelope.” 

He’s traveled to Phoenix’s old city hall downtown, where he posed for a photo with a newly married couple in front of the old steps. He traveled across downtown’s Civic Space Park, where a U.S. Postal truck driver honked at him enthusiastically. He leaped in front of Mesa City Hall, which he learned wasn’t a polling location, but encouraged voters to find the locations online. “Envelope” jumped and relaxed in front of the LOVE sculpture in Old Town Scottsdale. Residents stopped him to share their voting stories. 

He met up with other voting performance artists on a busy Tempe corner at University Drive and Rural Road. He posted a photo of  “Envelope” floating in the sky to signify it being mailed. 

“The whole thing is about humor and trying to bring some lightness into this other turbulent space,” Sale said. 

The collective started six years ago during Sale’s art and community class at ASU. He’s been a professor there for more than 20 years. The class met over Zoom due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but the students still wanted to make something together. In the run-up to the 2020 Presidential Election, in which former President Joe Biden would go on to beat President Donald Trump, the students identified voting as an issue they could share across political backgrounds. 

Students created oversized letters, characters like Envelope, and large voting-promotion signs—which a professional sign spinner taught them to spin. Students gathered outside ASU’s Tempe campus to socially distance while promoting voting to young and skeptical voters through performance art. 

Over the years, students, faculty, staff, alumni and people from various art disciplines have joined the collective to increase election participation. One collective member wearing “Envelope” swayed on ASU’s campus ahead of the 2022 midterms. Another member danced and clicked their heels as the character. The character also showed up during a Mesa Arts Center brainstorming session in 2023. It also marched in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election during the midterms and sat down for a fireside chat with Instagram users. 

“Envelope has become way more of a character,” Sale said. “Way more of an engaged civic action mode.” 

Envelope won’t be making an Election Day appearance (Sale’s out of town), but Maricopa County voters will have until 7 p.m. on November 3 to cast their votes or turn in their ballots. It’s what Envelope would have wanted.