With the upcoming election just more than three months away, Vance County Republican Party Chairman Jimmy Barrier reminds local residents that although political signs may be placed on private property, campaigners are supposed to wait until 30 days before early voting begins to place signs in public right-of-way spaces. That day for the Nov. 5 election is Thursday, Sept. 5.
“I am pledging that we will continue to follow the rules concerning the placement of signs” Barrier said on Wednesday’s TownTalk. “I just want everyone to play by the rules…as laid out by the state Board of Elections.”
Barrier challenged members of the Democratic Party to do the same, but he said he’s already seen some signs out ahead of the Sept. 5 start date, which Barrier called “blatant violations of the law.”
And although Barrier pledged that members of his party will not remove the offending signs, he said any private citizen is free to do so because the too-early placement of the signs is considered littering, a class 1 misdemeanor.
“We will not damage campaign signs,” Barrier said. “We’re not going to go out there and pull ‘em up – it’s not our job and not what we’re going to do.”
What he and others will do is notify local law enforcement officials including the county Board of Elections, Henderson Police Department, Vance County Sheriff’s Office and district attorney’s office to report violations. Each violation could bring a $50 civil penalty.
“If the signs offend you, people have the right to take them up,” Barrier said, but only from public rights-of-way – NOT from private property where the signs are placed with permission of the property owner.
The city regulates placement of campaign signs and its policies state that they can’t be placed on power poles, in cemeteries or in the grassy triangle northwest of the downtown underpass.
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