Meanwhile, Thompson said Graham's plans were her business, but added that none of the presidential nominees ran on stickers against Michael Dukakis, nor would Dukakis wage a sticker campaign against George Bush if he lost in November.

Johnson said the sticker effort for Bolling--who ran such a campaign because he failed to turn in his nomination papers on time--faced several problems: different parts of the district used several different kinds of ballots with different procedures for write-in voting; some voting machines had write-in slots too high for handicapped or elderly voters to reach; and, as in Graham's district, the turnout set record lows at around 15 percent.

Borges said Albano's 1984 campaign risked $25,000 in borrowed money and two months of work for a sticker campaign. Albano opted for a sticker effort in the general election, because he had placed second in a three-way primary--only 163 votes behind the leader, Piro--and because Piro was about to face trial on corruption charges.

The risky undertaking worked--thanks to 75 to 100 nightly volunteers and saturation tactics using the stickers. Albano won by about 2000 votes, not counting around 1000 ballots that the Piro campaign challenged because the stickers were in the wrong place.

Borges said the campaign printed four times as many stickers as probable voters, then delivered them in four ways--once by mail, once in leaflets, once via volunteer on every district doorstep, and once outside the polling places on election day.

"There are some success stories," said Borges, who now advises other candidates on sticker campaigns. But, he added, they are few and far between.

Graham's district includes Adams, Dunster, Leverett and Mather Houses, the freshman Union dorms and Peabody Terrace.