Importance
Political scientist Mel Kahn states that lawn signs help build name recognition for candidates. Supposedly, each sign represents 6-10 votes for the candidate. However, veteran political organizers hate the task of handing out yard signs, because they believe that time spent on procuring and distributing yard signs could be better used on other voter registration and get out the vote operations. One randomized field trial found yard signs simply reminding people to vote were able to significantly increase overall voter turnout.
In addition, it gives the requester a placebo effect of doing something substantive, while not actually volunteering to help their candidate. Critics charge that "lawn signs don't vote" and dismiss the importance of them. Theft of lawn signs is treated like any other instance of petty theft, however, signs on the rights of way in many states are considered litter and can be picked up by anyone as a public service. This doesn't stop ill informed law enforcement officers from arresting law abiding citizens on behalf of the politicians, though.
The Wall Street Journal reported on a new type of yard sign designed for improved effectiveness by being cut into shapes or people to deliver a political message. The article suggests that such signs can expose 25,000 drivers per day to messages at a low cost.
Read more about this topic: Lawn Sign
Famous quotes containing the word importance:
“There are of course people who are more important than others in that they have more importance in the world but this is not essential and it ceases to be. I have no sense of difference in this respect because every human being comprises the combination form.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“Think of the importance of Friendship in the education of men.... It will make a man honest; it will make him a hero; it will make him a saint. It is the state of the just dealing with the just, the magnanimous with the magnanimous, the sincere with the sincere, man with man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)