Pencil Chained to Voting Station

Submission 1,988

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About

Pencil Chained to Voting Station is an exploitable webcomic by artist Arend van Dam known as "Putin Candidate for President" that depicts a man attempting to fill a box on the bottom of a voting card but is unable to because the pencil is attached to the polling station with a short chain, only allowing him to fill in the top-most box that's labeled "Putin." The comic was created in 2011 and became the increasing subject of photoshops throughout the 2010s and 2020s in which various aspects of the image are replaced to alter the context.

Origin

According to PoliticalCartoons.com,^[1] the original version of the comic was published by artist Arend van Dam on September 26th, 2011 (shown below, left). The comic depicts a man unable to vote for any political candidate but Vladimir Putin because the pencil at the voting center is attached to a short chain.

It's unclear who first photoshopped the image as a meme, with one of the earliest examples being an August 26th, 2016, post to /r/im14andthisisdeep,^[2] simply replacing the text "Putin" and "other candidate" with "Republican," "Democrat" and "Freedom" (shown below, right).

Spread

The meme became increasingly popularized over the following years. On March 19th, 2018, Redditor u/Hotdawg752 posted a version to /r/fakehistoryporn^[3] titled, "Actual polling center during the Russian election, Moscow (2018)," garnering over 47,000 upvotes in five years (shown below).

On August 20th, 2021, Redditor u/FeyrisTan posted a version of the meme to /r/antimeme,^[4] garnering over 1,200 upvotes in two years (shown below, left). On December 7th, u/Nick97_ posted a version of the meme to /r/shitposting,^[5] garnering over 13,000 upvotes in two years (shown below, right). The latter meme was reposted to Tumblr^[6] in February 2022, garnering over 1,500 notes in a year.

On February 14th, 2022, Redditor u/humongousamogus posted a version of the meme to /r/Gamingcirclejerk^[7] where the man is forced to vote on whether or not he wants a game featuring a pregnant version of Mario, garnering over 10,000 upvotes in a year (shown below). It was reposted by Tumblr^[8] user grox on May 2nd, garnering over 15,000 notes in the same span of time. On November 12th, 2023, X^[9] user @ShitpostGate posted the meme, garnering over 12,000 likes in a day.