Are Political Lawn Signs an Anachronism?

As some of your may know, there’s another election happening in North America other than Obama vs. McCain.

In Canada, Stephen Harper is looking to turn a minority government into a majority so he can do all kinds of wonderful things to Canada (e.g. new, restricted copyright laws) with far less hassle. In any event, one of the things I noticed riding home yesterday was the appearance of lawn signs for local candidates.

There’s lots of different colors, although few for the Green Party, which, I guess, makes sense given the Green Party probably wants to be environmentally-friendly and focus its limited budget on different campaign priorities.

One thing that struck me is whether lawn signs – and, for that matter, campaign pamphlets – are an anachronism. In an age where the distribution of information is increasingly easy because of the Web, do we really need to be cutting down trees to create election collateral.

If you think about it, how much of an impact do lawn signs have anyway? Is the way you vote impacted at all?

Personally, lawn signs are a waste. They don’t say anything other than my name is Joe Smith and I’m running for the ABC company. There has to be better, more effective and greener ways to communicate and educate. It’s time for the political lawn sign to disappear.

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http://adamczar.tumblr.com Adam

I think the idea behind lawn signs is more for local candidates. Truth is, unless you are really on top of things, most people don’t know squat about their local government. So when they go to the voter booths, even if they don’t know who the person is, at least they recognize a name because they’ve seen it in everyone’s lawn. So they get the vote.

At least, that’s how I see it. I’m in the US where nobody really knows anything about the people they vote for.
http://www.markevanstech.com Mark Evans

Adam,

Good points! I wonder if there’s a correlation between the number of lawn signs you have vs. the number of votes you’ll attract.
http://comfyfur.blogspot.com Steve

I thing signs are a great way to show support for local candidates. As well, I can always find a use for the corrugated plastic the sign is made from. It is a very versatile material.

For example, I have lined my grocery shopping cart with it and, a couple of elections ago, I made cover for my bird cage with a Paul Martin sign. For some reason, whether budgie poop or puffin poop, it always seems to land on Liberals.
Vava

If you think about the demographic that has the highest voter turnout, ie. the elderly, lawn signs must still be considered an important part of any party’s marketing campaign. Also, I think there is a psychological impact of seeing more signs for one candidate given that people will subconsciously gravitate to a “winner”, whether that perception is right or wrong seems secondary. If the candidate you planned to vote for is not visible amidst all the lawn signs you may start to doubt your choice and perhaps rethink your strategy. Of course all of this is a gross generalization, but I think there is something to this. What I could really do without is the barrage of pamphlets I get in my mailbox!
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/wahl Andrew Wahl

Local campaigns don’t get much coverage, so unless you’re actively engaged in the election, lawn signs are the first indication (and maybe the only one) of who is running. It is also self-perpetuating: if you’re a candidate who decides not to post lawn signs, you’re the candidate whose name no one knows. Name recognition is incredibly important, especially if you’re not the sitting MP. In my riding, for instance, I cannot recall the names of either the NDP or Green Party candidates, because I haven’t seen a single lawn signs–and I even voted for the Green last time around.

The unfortunate thing is that local campaigns rely so heavily on lawn signs. I sent an e-mail to one of my local candidates asking for more details about one of the planks in her platform, and received no response. When we got an unrelated phone call from her campaign, they had no interest in sending us more information or answering questions of any kind–all they wanted to know is if we wanted a lawn sign. Even after we said we were undecided as to whether we would support this candidate, they asked, “But do you want a lawn sign?”
Denis

An example that comes to mind is Coke vs Pepsi. Both companies advertise heavily to preserve their market share. If both were to stop advertising, their market shares would stay constant (of course, lots of assumptions are made here, such as the lack of 3rd parties). Same with politics.

Also, I’d hate for the future of a riding/country to be shaped by plain Joe who votes based on which name he sees more often. I’d rather not have him vote in that case.