One sure indication that an election campaign is under way is the appearance of flocks of political signs in yards, in front of businesses and, especially, at heavily-traveled intersections across the local landscape. The signage is a part of every election — even those like the just concluded county primaries in which there were relatively few contested races and low voter interest. Putting up the signs is easy for candidates and their supporters. Removing them after voting is concluded, though, is sometimes a bit harder. There’s a reason for that.
Winners generally are eager to collect their signs, or make sure that supporters do so. They are eager to move forward and don’t want the public to connect their name to post-election clutter. The losers, on the other hand, don’t have the same incentive to tacle the clean-up task. Consequently, their signs sometimes remain on view until they become faded reminders of shattered political hopes.
Local and state laws regarding removal of election signs vary, but generally require that they be removed from public property or rights of way within two or three weeks. Those laws are rarely enforced, and if they are, the penalties for violation are minimal. Even so, the sign clean-up following last Tuesday’s primaries has been extraordinarily fast.
Though less than a week has passed since balloting ended, most of the campaign signs have been removed. The prompt work by both winning and losing candidates is welcome and appreciated.
The removal of campaign signs is a service to all residents in the area. It improves the look of the community. It also is fiscally prudent. One candidate who quickly picked up his signs after Tuesday’s voting said he did so because it was the right thing to do and that because they were expensive he wanted to save them in case he sought office again. That’s the sort of thinking that should endear an office-seeker
to voters who want candidates and elected officials to demonstrate civic and fiscal responsibility.
Not all the signs have been removed. A few still tout candidacies ended in the primaries. Hopefully, they’ll be picked up within the time frame established by law.
Others will stay for a while. They tout the candidacies of primary winners who face opponents in the August election or promote individuals whose names were not on the ballot this month but will be on the August ballot. Indeed, as the next election nears, it is reasonable to expect that the number of signs extolling this or that candidate will multiply rapidly.
That’s in the future, though. At present, it seems that most of those who seek public office know that it is a privilege to seek office and to be allowed to display their signs publicly in the run-up to an election. They understand, as well, that the privilege of doing so carries with it a responsibility to remove them when the election is over. Accepting that responsibility and acting on it is a community service and a mark of god citizenship.