Nebraskan governor Dave Heineman recently announced that citizens could vote online to nominate their favourite of four designs, one of which will become the state's new licence plate, for the state's 2.2m registered vehicles in 2011.
However, the quality and paucity of the designs sparked anger among the public and the Nebraskan design community, with the latter incensed that it had not been consulted on developing the brand identity.
The designs themselves were the leftovers from Nebraska's previous licence plate competition four years before and were extremely amateur-looking -- one of the plates was designed by a Department of Motor Vehicles employee, while another was provided by the state's licence plate supplier.
Consternation among the public and Nebraskan designers who felt they had been neglected led to the issue being discussed on Twitter and Facebook, which in turn led to it being picked up by humorous website .
The furore led the digital magazine to run a "Ruin this Poll" item on its website earlier this month, which encouraged people across the US to vote for what was inarguably the worst of the four designs -- a clunky, dull, black and grey-coloured licence plate.
Yesterday, the Nebraskan government was shocked when it learned the results of its poll -- the most-derided of the designs won 41% of the vote.
The Nebraskan Department for Motor Vehicles said that it was aware of the CollegeHumor campaign link, but claimed it did not have a significant impact on voting, adding that it had monitored but not blocked traffic driven through the link.