Political Signs - 2008 Primary

After the 2008 PA Primary was over (April 22), and most of the political signs had already been taken down, there were still many signs left behind. I cleaned up all of the remaining political signs in the Harrisburg / West Shore area that I could find, roughly 500 of them. These were signs that were in the public right-of-way which is illegal. (I do not touch privately-placed signs in people's front yards; those are legal. A few negligent homeowners still have signs up a month after the election.) The good news is that none of them in this area were mounted on utility poles, which would be doubly illegal.

Besides being an eyesore, one reason speedy removal of these signs is important is to get them out of the way of the mowers, especially along the highway. It's Spring and the grass is growing fast (and the ticks are bad this year!). The Ron Paul signs are especially bad, since most of them were placed low to the ground. The highway median mowers are going to have a lot of Ron Paul signs stuck in their blades -- the ones that I couldn't spot hidden in the already-tall grass.

Below is a list of candidates whose signs I had to clean up. I recommend voting against candidates that spam -- not only because the signs are a public nuisance, but a person who can't abide with the law (sign placement laws) doesn't belong in a public office of law. The first few people on the list had the most leftover political sign spam this season, with Ron Paul being the worst by far. In addition to Ron Paul, I would also like to point out Alvin Q. Taylor and Karl Singleton as having signs in especially inappropriate places such as stuck in the concrete in the middle of various intersections.

Ron Paul
Alvin Q. Taylor
John Cordisco
Tom Corbett
Rob McCord
Toni Gilhooley
Judy Hirsh
Deb Curcillo
Bill Cornell
Ian Hayes
Ron Buxton
Lowell Gates
Barack Obama
Mike Hancock
Karl Singleton
Phyllis Bennett
Hillary Clinton
August "Skip" Memmi
Bruno
Emily Ulrich
Eric Reeser
Jeff Banzhoff
Jeff Piccola
Jeffrey B. Engle
McCloskey
Sheryl Delozier
Sue Helm
Zemlock

Pennsylvania could use a law like Texas has, that forces every political sign to have a notice printed on them stating that it's against the law to place this sign in the right-of-way of a highway. I think it would go a long way toward cutting down the political sign spam problem. And if there would be a way to enforce fines or other sanctions against campaigns that violate sign placement laws, I would certainly support that.