Campaign Signs

Politics & Elections
1

Every election, we get this infestment of candidate sign popping up in the verges and medians and everywhere that they can think to put them. It seems like a sort of violation of the principle of the concept.

In their proper use, the signs are pounded into one’s lawn to signify that the person who lives there supports the candidate. When you see a yard sign touting “Finkley Ratbastard for Congress!”, so what? It means that Finkley had the time to drive around and put signs on public property.

We already have enough input to ignore while we are trying to drive well (or like assholes, as all of us seem to do), why should we be adding more? It just seems wrong.

So, if Finkley Ratbastard’s campaign has the right to do this, do I have the right to pull his signs up from public property? What are the practical, ethical and legal limits on free expression here?

(I should note that the bulk of these signs appear to be for candidates of one particular party, but my inclination is to pull them up with equanimity.)

2

In Washington State, it is illegal to remove campaign signs. I don’t like the idea of them on public property, but I guess someone has determined the side of the road is a public forum for free expression in campaign years. And I agree, it is “a violation of the principle of the concept.”

3

First of all, you have to be sure it really is “public” property. But if it is, rip away baby! There’s no law that says you can’t pull them up and my local municipality actually sent people around to do just that last year.

EDIT: Obviously, laws may differ where you live, etc, etc, etc.

4

Here’s what I’ve found:

5

So if I just uproot them and lay them down, is that “removing or defacing”?

6

Politicians avoid putting signs on private property without permission. The backlash from revealing they’ve done that is more costly than the benefit of more signs. On public property the laws vary, but it’s no surprise that lawmakers make laws protecting these signs. It’s also public property and they should have the same right to free speech as anyone else. That permits you to put up your own sign on public property for another candidate, or simply denouncing the other signs. Unfortunately you might not have the added strength of prosecution if your sign doesn’t qualify as political advertising.

An anecdote: In New York there’s a cliff that almost always has a campaign sign at the top of it because it’s readily apparent on a major commuting artery. The top of the cliff is only accessible from private property, but the cliff itself is city property. The municipal maintenance crew is supposed to remove signs on public property once the elections are over, but those would remain up. When asked why, the maintenance chief responded “You climb up and there and get it yourself, I’m not going to try it.”

ETA: I’ve also heard accusations from candidates that their signs have been removed by their opponents on both public and private property. Never heard of anything coming out of that though. It’s more likely teenagers than poltical operatives.

7

I disagree with the idea the signs are only to promote that a particular person supports a candidate. It is advertising just like when you see Snickers billboards everywhere.

Part of it is to convey the message the candidate has popular support, the more signs people see the more likely they’ll believe that.
One of my friend’s businesses has a strip of land along the major road of the their town. It is a prime spot for campaign sings. His business standpoint is ‘businesses should remain neutral’ so he does not allow any campaign signs on the property. Every campaign season however he has to take down the trespassing signs. The signs over the years have been almost exclusively Republican. He is a lifelong Republican and finds it very frustrating that the party of property rights has no respect for his.

8

Well, that’s your friend’s problem right there. If he had “NO trespassing” signs instead, maybe he’d keep those rascals off his property. :smiley:

You also compare campaign yard signs to billboards. The obvious difference is that billboards are private property, rented out for the purpose of advertising. Putting “Fred Blotnik for Dogcatcher” signs along public streets or in medians isn’t exactly the same thing.

In my city a few election cycles ago, one candidate was having a rally of some sort here. So their campaign absolutely PLASTERED a grassy area next to one of our main downtown highways with their signs. The city made their disapproval known, as well as the fact that such signs aren’t supposed to be placed on public property. I don’t believe those signs lasted an entire day before they were taken down.

9

So the legal recourse in states the prevent removal is to order up a bunch of signs that say “VOTE!” and stake them in right in front of the existing signs. No way that could be afoul of the law.

10

We have a Tammany sign that says “Tammany:Vote Early, Vote Often” in our yard. Prevents people from asking us if they can put a sign in our yard :stuck_out_tongue:

11

Awesome, that, do you have a picture? Is it classical styling?

12

And I want to salute the OP for use of the word “infestment.” I didn’t know it was legit.

13

It doesn’t make sense to me, since you are giving one person freedom of speech at a certain time, but therefore removing it from everyone else at other times. Heck, why is adulterating public property by poking something into the ground a worse defacement of public property than picking that same thing back up?

And why isn’t this logic used so that people can put whatever religious symbol they want on public property? Why isn’t that promoting freedom of religion, and violating it if someone is allowed to remove it?

15

Campaign signs are a form of spam. Like the last post.
Reported. (AustinClarke)