What to know about displaying political lawn signs in Pennsylvania

In Montgomery County, the Upper Providence Democrats started placing AirTags on their Kamala Harris for President signs to trace disappearances after about 50 went missing in mid-October.

The committee found that some signs were removed by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation or confused homeowners. A good portion, however, were stolen, said Ben Stevens, chair of the Upper Providence Democrats. He once followed a truck covered in Donald Trump stickers to a supermarket after the AirTag alerted him that a sign was missing.

After a call to the police and a civil-enough confrontation with the suspected thief, Stevens got the sign back.

“It makes me feel a little bit more in control,” he told The Inquirer.

The group’s AirTag experiment is a heightened example of what Republican and Democratic organizers in Philadelphia’s collar counties say is an uptick in theft and vandalism of political signs, stemming from the heated presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

» READ MORE: ‘It’s almost like sign warfare’: In a heated presidential race, political lawns signs are a flash point in Philadelphia’s collar counties

Why are political lawn signs so contested, and what are your rights around displaying them in Pennsylvania? Here’s what you need to know:

Placing a political sign on your property is part of the free speech protected under the First Amendment, as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1994 during City of Ladue v. Gilleo, which condemned the Missouri municipality for its ordinance that banned political signs from display at private residences.

“Residential signs have long been an important and distinct medium of expression,” the court wrote in the unanimous decision.

This means that political lawn signs “are protected from government intervention,” such as a town placing a blanket ban on political signage or subjecting them to different rules than commercial signs, said Andrew McGinley, vice president of external affairs for the Committee of Seventy, a nonpartisan civic watchdog group focused on voter protection and engagement.

Case (literally) in point: A federal appeals court ruled in May that an ordinance in Camp Hill Borough — a small town outside Harrisburg — that placed stricter time and size limits on political signs limited free speech and was thus unconstitutional.

» READ MORE: From 2020: How to recycle your campaign lawn signs

Yes — if it’s a stipulation of your lease or homeowner agreement.

Though political lawn signs are protected from government crackdowns, Pennsylvania law also says that private entities (like a landlord or HOA) can use contracts to limit displaying them.

Pennsylvania’s Superior Court ruled in 1996 that homeowners associations are allowed to restrict political signage because by purchasing homes in those communities, residents agree to abide by their rules. The same would likely hold for a rental lease, said McGinley.

“Whatever the policy is, it needs to be written down and included in the contract. It can’t just be made up on the spot,” McGinley said. Restrictions on political signage would also need to be enforced uniformly, he explained, without favoring paraphernalia for one candidate or party over another.

Yes. Stealing a political lawn sign is misdemeanor theft in the third degree, which can carry up to $2,000 in fines under Pennsylvania law.

Vandalizing a lawn sign would likely be considered a summary criminal mischief offense, which can result in up to $250 in fines or 90 days in jail.

“It’s the theft of something that doesn’t have a lot of monetary value. … People are absolutely entitled legally and morally to report it,” said McGinley.

Whether someone chooses to contact the police over a stolen or vandalized sign is ultimately a “personal decision,” McGinley said. When his parents had a political sign stolen from their lawn in Abington, McGinley said, his recommendation was that they simply replace it.

When Denise DePaul of Blue Bell reviewed surveillance footage of a man slashing and dismantling the 4-by-4 foot Trump-Vance sign on her front lawn in mid-October, she filed a police report — mostly out of principle, she said.

“That someone would come onto my private property to commit a crime just because they don’t like what they see is much more disturbing than the actual sign ripping itself,” DePaul said.

Every municipality has its own regulations regarding how long campaign signs can stay up.

There is no limit for how long political signs can stay up in Philadelphia, the city’s law department told Billy Penn in 2017, though most campaigns will try to remove signs within a week of Election Day.

Property owners are responsible for disposing of any signs on their lawns, while campaigns are responsible for removing their signs from public spaces.

» READ MORE: From 2023: Who cleans up all those campaign signs after an election?

It depends.

A 2015 study from Columbia University professor Donald Green found that campaign signage can increase voter share by 1.7% on average. That margin can be negligible in presidential elections, yet vital in down-ballot races for things like school boards, which can often be decided by a handful of votes.

Political organizers say that lawn signs are more about building reassurance than swaying voters.

Signage “helps to make you feel supported in the community,” said Stevens, the Upper Providence Democrats’ chair.

Signage makes up a small part of the hundreds of millions of dollars the Harris and Trump campaigns have spent to secure Philly’s collar counties and Pennsylvania’s 19 Electoral College votes. They are also hyper-visible — and, in a rapidly polarizing political climate, can lead to people making quick judgments about their neighbors.

DePaul said she “thought everyone who had a Harris sign was a suspect” right after she discovered her Trump-Vance banner was taken.

“People are just so entrenched in who they support they just don’t want to consider the alternative and have, unfortunately, just completely written off the other side,” said Christine Steere, chair of the Plumstead Democrats in Bucks County.

Steere’s committee discovered what she described as “a graveyard” of torn and discarded Harris signs behind Montgomery Presbyterian Church in Lansdale earlier this fall. When a volunteer went to clear the site in mid-October, Steere said, he discovered around 250 signs lying among the overgrown grass.

“To actually lay eyes on dozens and dozens of only Harris signs in this pile, it’s disappointing,” Steere said. “We should all be able to express our opinions freely.”