The New Hampshire political primary election is less than a month away, on Sept. 8, and political signs are sprouting all over the place. Let’s revisit our regular Q&A on this unavoidable product of local democracy.
Q. Where can campaign signs be placed?
On private land, the owner’s permission is necessary. It’s also necessary on public land, so don’t stick your sign in front of town hall unless the select board says it’s OK. Which they probably won’t.
Rules for the land alongside roads, the most coveted campaign real estate, are a little complicated. New Hampshire Department of Transportation guidelines can be summarized like this:
- Signs cannot be placed on interstates or along on- and off-ramps, period. This includes other limited-access highways, like Route 101 between Bedford and Hampton.
- Signs can go next to all state roads unless they create a hazard by impeding the view of traffic or if they get in the way of maintenance work like mowing. In that case, they can be removed by road crews or the police.
- Police can also remove signs from private property if they block the view of traffic traveling along the road.
- Signs cannot be put on utility poles. In fact, you’re not supposed to attach anything to utility poles, despite what owners of lost pets think.
- Campaign signs removed by local or state officials are usually stored at the public works garage or police department. If nobody gets them, they tend to get tossed a week or two after the election.
Q. I see an illegally placed sign. Can I remove it?
If it’s on your own property, go ahead. Otherwise, no.
State law is clear: The only folks who can remove a sign are (1) the campaign that placed it, (2) the property owner, or (3) law enforcement or highway crews.
Q. How long can signs stay up?
Signs must be removed from public land by the second Friday following the primary if the candidate lost. If the candidate won the primary, the sign can stay until the general election in November. They can stay on private property forever if the owners don’t mind.
If you see signs of a losing primary candidate on public land after the deadline, which is Sept. 18, call your local police or public works department.
Q. Do roadside political signs work?
A paper in the March 2016 edition of the research journal Electoral Studies discussed four randomized trials involving candidates – for Congress, mayor and a county office – in a few different states, as well as a campaign directed against a candidate. Signs were placed in some precincts and not in others for each race.
The paper’s conclusion was that, on average, signs increased a candidate’s voting share by 1.7 percentage points. That’s not much, but plenty of elections are decided by fewer than 1.7 percentage points.
So, it seems signs do sway voters a little bit.
Many political operatives, however, say the target audience for signs isn’t really voters; it’s donors and volunteers. People are much more likely to give money or time to a campaign if they think it’s doing well, and local signs can reinforce that impression.
