Election Button Maker: Design and Print Election Buttons Free
Design and print election buttons free. Candidate pins, ballot measure buttons, poll worker badges, and I Voted buttons, all with automatic bleed and print-ready PDF export.
A Free Election Button Generator That Prints
Design in the browser, download a PDF, press the buttons yourself
Most election button tools are order forms. You pick a design, they print it, and you wait a week and pay per button. ButtonMaker is the other half of that: you design the button here and walk away with the print file, so you can run a batch the same afternoon on a home printer and a button press.
That matters in an election cycle because timing moves. A debate goes well, an endorsement lands, a measure gets a number assigned, and you want buttons by the weekend. Designing and printing in-house turns a one week lead time into about ten minutes plus press time.
Everything the print shop would handle for you is handled here: bleed is calculated automatically so nothing important gets cropped when the paper wraps around the shell, cut guides are printed on the sheet, and Fill Page packs as many buttons onto a letter sheet as the size allows.
Free plan, no credit card, no watermark on your PDF.
Four Kinds of Election Buttons
Each one has a different job, and each one lays out differently
Candidate Buttons
Name in the largest type you can fit, office and district underneath, one strong background color. Arc text along the top edge is the classic treatment and it is what makes a button read as an election button rather than a generic pin.
Ballot Measure Buttons
Lead with the measure or proposition number, because that is the string voters scan the ballot for. Put the yes or no position directly under it, and keep the issue description to three or four words so it stays legible across a room.
Poll Worker and Volunteer Badges
These are identification, not persuasion. Role first, name second, high contrast, and no photograph. 1.5 inch is plenty and keeps the cost down when you are badging a few dozen people across several precincts.
I Voted Buttons
One design, printed in volume, handed out at the door. This is the cheapest election button to make because a single sheet is a full run: 6 at 2.25 inch or 15 at 1.5 inch, with no variation to manage.
What Size Should an Election Button Be?
2.25 inch is the answer for most races. Here is when it is not.
The Standard
The default election and campaign button size. Holds a candidate name and an office on two readable lines, pins comfortably to a lapel, and fits 6 to a letter sheet at the default margins. If you are unsure, this is the one.
Use the 2.25" templateThe Volume Option
15 to a letter sheet at the default margins, so your paper cost per button drops by about 60%. Right for poll worker badges, I Voted giveaways, and anything you are producing in the hundreds. Too small for a long candidate name.
Use the 1.5" templateThe Rally Button
Maximum visibility at events, debates, and fundraisers, with room for a photo or a longer slogan. Only 4 fit on a letter sheet at the default margins, so reserve this size for the moments where the button is meant to be photographed.
Use the 3" templateWhat Election Buttons Cost to Make
The math that decides whether you print or order
Making them yourself, a 2.25 inch election button costs roughly 12 to 25 cents. Button parts (shell, mylar, pin-back) are 10 to 20 cents each when bought in bulk, and a sheet of cardstock is about 3 cents spread across the 6 buttons it holds. Ink is a rounding error at these volumes.
Ordering the same button printed runs about 50 cents to $1 each at the quantities a local race actually needs. The gap is the equipment: a 2.25 inch button press starts around $60 to $100, and a circle cutter is $15 to $30. At a 40 cent per button saving, the press pays for itself somewhere between 300 and 500 buttons, which a single competitive city council race will clear.
Beyond the break-even point the calculation gets more lopsided than the per-button numbers suggest, because reprints become free. A misspelled district, a new endorsement, an extra precinct: each of those is a new order and a new lead time when you outsource, and an afternoon when you do not.
- 1.5 inch: 15 per letter sheet, the cheapest way to badge volunteers
- 2.25 inch: 6 per letter sheet, the standard candidate button
- 3 inch: 4 per letter sheet, roughly double the paper cost per button
A Named Button for Every Poll Worker
One design, one spreadsheet, one PDF
Election day runs on people who are working a long shift for very little. A button with their own name on it costs a few cents and it is the cheapest recognition available to a campaign or a clerk's office.
Design one button with placeholder text like {NAME} and {PRECINCT}, upload a CSV with a column for each placeholder, and ButtonMaker generates a separate button for every row and adds them all to the print queue. You export one PDF and print the whole roster.
The same mechanism handles a slate. If you are supporting several candidates on one ticket, put the candidate name and office in the spreadsheet instead and generate the whole set from a single layout, so every button in the family matches.
Mail merge available on the Producer plan ($19.99/mo)Design Rules That Are Specific to Election Buttons
- Names get cropped, so respect the bleed. The outer ring of a button wraps around the shell and disappears. Long surnames pushed to the edge lose their last letters. Keep text inside the safe zone the editor shows you.
- Two levels of hierarchy, not three. Name large, office small. Adding a slogan as a third line is what makes a button unreadable at conversation distance.
- Pick contrast over brand colors. A button is read from six feet away in bad light. Navy on cream and white on red both work. Mid-tone on mid-tone does not, no matter how good it looks on screen.
- Include the office and the year. It costs one small line and it is what turns the button into a keepsake instead of a leaflet, which is most of why people keep wearing them.
- Check your disclaimer requirements. Many jurisdictions require a "paid for by" line on campaign materials. Rules vary by state and by item type, so confirm locally before you print a run.
Election Button Questions
Yes. The free Tinker plan lets you design election buttons and download print-ready PDFs, up to 5 designs per month. There is no watermark on the PDF and no credit card required. If you are running a full slate and need unlimited designs, the Maker plan is $4.99 per month.
The 2.25 inch circle is the standard election button size and has been since the mid-twentieth century. It holds a candidate name and the office on two readable lines. Use 3 inch for rally and event buttons where visibility matters, and 1.5 inch for cheap volunteer and poll worker badges you are handing out in volume.
Yes. I Voted buttons are one of the most common election day items people make here. A single design fills a whole page, so one letter sheet gives you 6 buttons at 2.25 inch or 15 at 1.5 inch. Many county clerks and student government groups print their own rather than ordering them.
Yes, and ballot measure buttons follow different design rules than candidate buttons. Lead with the measure number in the largest type, since that is what voters look for on the ballot, then put the yes or no position underneath. Keep the issue name short enough to read from a few feet away.
Button parts run roughly 10 to 20 cents each in bulk, and a letter sheet of cardstock adds about 3 cents across 6 buttons. That puts a homemade 2.25 inch election button at roughly 12 to 25 cents. Ordering the same button printed runs about 50 cents to $1 each at small quantities, so a press pays for itself somewhere around 300 to 500 buttons.
Yes, with mail merge on the Producer plan. Design one election button with a placeholder like {NAME}, upload a CSV of your poll workers or volunteers, and ButtonMaker generates a separate button for every row and adds them all to the print queue as one PDF.
Make your election buttons now
Start on the 2.25" template, add the candidate name, and download the PDF. About ten minutes from here to a printable sheet.
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