Mark Lane: When campaigns heat up, yard signs go missing
The humble yard sign is the most visible hint that election season is here.
Mail ads are the medium of choice for attacks and lately for fake candidates. TV ads are the most polished and expensive advertising medium. But yard signs are relatively cheap and there all day and all night, even if they don't have room for much more than a name and the word "elect." Their placement tends to be the work of volunteers, friends, enthusiasts and the candidates themselves rather than consultants.
They are impersonal when on country road rights-of-way. (Technically not allowed, but campaigns do that anyway.) Yet they can be a personal statement when plopped in the middle of an actual yard. Especially when they are part of some resident's personal slate of candidates placed all in a row.
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From 2020: Trump-Biden sign fight leads to punch, arrest in DeBary
The signs sell nothing but name recognition and the hope that maybe that candidate might sound familiar to a low-information voter filling out a ballot. Isn't that the guy with the green signs next to the Dairy Queen?
Do they really help a campaign? "Signs don't vote" is the wisdom of political pros. A sign in a yard means you have a friend. A sign by the roadside means you have a friend with a pickup truck.
Professional opinion is divided on whether they do any good or whether they are nothing more than roadside visual pollution. They proliferate anyway and every election year sees complaints, and sometimes arrests, over yard sign thefts, disappearances and vandalism.
This year's case: Former Edgewater Mayor Mike Ignasiak was caught on video carrying off a yard sign bearing the name of his opponent, 18-year-old Diezel Depew. He tossed another sign belonging to County Council candidate Frederick "Ted" Noftall into his pickup truck as well. He was charged with the second-degree misdemeanor of petit theft.
Ignasiak was the prohibitive frontrunner in the race. And despite the poor optics of being caught on camera with an armful of other candidates' signs, his chances remain good because his is the more recognized name on the ballot, plus he's the only candidate for the post who is of drinking age. He has a lot of yard signs, too.
Ignasiak told police he was simply removing signs improperly placed in the roadside right-of-way and had permission from the nearest property owner. Code enforcement, however, is not generally a job for amateurs.
It seems that every election year sees complaints and criminal reports related to yard signs. In 2020, a year that saw an uptick in yard sign drama in neighborhoods across the nation, a DeBary man was charged with misdemeanor battery after a fight with a next-door neighbor over the neighbor's Joe Biden sign, which he said had blocked his Donald Trump sign from roadside view. Anthony "Tony" Vullo pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct and the judge sentenced him to 25 hours of community service and an anger-management course.
And back in 2012, a Palm Coast man was arrested for criminal mischief, charged with spray painting a single-word, anatomical comment on two signs for a supervisor of elections candidate.
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TV and radio can feel like no more than background noise. Mailers often travel without pause from mailbox to trashcan. Voters drive past billboards in a flash. But a yard sign, one that's on your regular outdoor route, is something you see again and again day after day.
And that can get to some people. Action ensues.
Sadly, though, the smooth operation of a democratic republic depends on a certain amount of forbearance on the part of candidates and activists. And that includes yard signs. Candidates: don't scatter your signs everywhere and just leave them there until Christmas. Homeowners: don't get in your neighbors' faces about your political leanings. And remember, we live in an age where there is video everywhere, so don't think stealth action against the signs that bug you won't be recorded.
And finally, no action signals acceptance of the verdict of a democracy like removing your signs after Election Day. Leaving one up for more than another week is a sure sign of a sore loser or an overbearing winner.
These are political types we already have enough of online. It's all the more annoying to encounter them in the neighborhood.
Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is mlanewrites@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Campaign signs going missing shows races are heating up | Mark Lane
