Update: 157 out of 212 individuals who attended last night's vote wanted to keep the seal. Syracuse.com reports Whitesboro mayor Patrick O' Connor "wasn't entirely surprised." What action, if any, will be prompted by the vote will be discussed by officials tonight.
Today at 6 p.m., a small village in upstate New York will vote on whether to change its official seal. The seal sparked considerable controversy on Twitter this summer — it looks like something The Onion, or possibly Family Guy would dream up. But as Whitesboro mayor Patrick O’Connor explained to The Village Voice in July, there's more going on in the seal than a white man appearing to choke a Native American man. Yes, that's the seal.
"If people take the time to do that and they reach out to us, or they do the research themselves, it’s actually a very accurate depiction of friendly wrestling matches that took place back in those days," O’Connor explained.
Still, many on Twitter just couldn't see the friendly wrestling match within the image, spreading hashtags like #TakeItDown and #ChangeTheSeal, along with calls to alter the seal. And now it looks like that could happen. Village clerk Dana Nimey-Olney has confirmed residents will be able to vote on the fate of the seal this evening from 6 to 9 p.m. The predominantly white village has a population of around 3,000, all of whom were informed of the vote through the mail.
But there's a very real possibility that the seal will remained unchanged. As O'Connor explained to WKTV, the vote isn't officially binding, rather it is a way to see how the residents of the town really feel about the seal.