Election campaigns still rely on old-school signs to sell local candidates

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Political parties have all manner of sophisticated tools with which to reach voters in this short and consequential federal election campaign. So why are they once again spending precious time and money to design and distribute old-school campaign signs?

It’s because those physical elections signs are still essential, says Bernard Motulsky, professor of public and social communication at Université du Québec à Montréal.

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“It’s pretty much the only place you can see your local candidates,” he said. “In the media, only the leaders will be on the front pages and on the news.”

Posting signs, Motulsky said, is also “a way to identify the strength of the local organization. When we see the number of signs and the spots they are placed in, it lets us see if the party has a solid organization or not in a riding.”

Signs across Montreal do suggest certain organizations are working hard to make their presence known in certain ridings. In the Plateau-Mont-Royal ridings of Outremont and Laurier—Sainte-Marie for instance, signs for the Liberal, NDP and Green candidate — in that order — are most prominent. Meanwhile on Nuns’ Island, where Conservative Steve Shanahan is taking on incumbent Liberal MP and former minister Marc Miller for the Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs seat, Conservative signs dominate the landscape.

Academic studies on the effectiveness of campaign signs are surprisingly few and far between, considering politicians have been attaching them to posts and planting them on lawns for about 100 years. But a few studies suggest these signs have at least a modest effect.

A 2015 study led by Columbia University political scientist Donald P. Green concluded campaign signs can affect outcomes by between one and two percentage points. So they can make a difference, but only in tight races, the researchers concluded.

A 2011 study by two associate professors of political science at Vanderbilt University showed lawn signs improve name recognition, which is key to success. One of their studies placed signs for a fictitious council candidate, “Ben Griffin,” on yard signs near a school, where signs for several real candidates were also on display. A survey of parents at the school showed about one-quarter of respondents who had driven past signs for Ben Griffin for three days placed him among their top three choices, while only 14 per cent of those who had not driven by the Griffin signs did so.

And, in 2014, researchers at Mount Royal University found counting campaign signs in a voting district can be useful in predicting outcomes. They counted signs erected by homeowners on private property in three Calgary ridings during a byelection and found in two out of the three cases, the percentage of yard signs for each candidate was roughly equivalent to their percentage of voter support.

Jonathan Gauvin, Quebec campaign director for the New Democratic Party, said NDP candidates can choose to erect as many signs as they like, but they must pay for them out of the money they raise locally. No one is forced to put up signs.

“There are always some candidates who want to use their own strategy,” he said. “In previous campaigns, some candidates decided not to use signs and to use their budget in a different way.”

But virtually all are going with signs this time, Gauvin said. If Canada had fixed election dates, the party might have debated the question, but with a sudden call for a 37-day campaign (the minimum length allowed under the Canada Elections Act), and all the turmoil around the trade war launched by U.S. President Donald Trump, NDP strategists decided not to mess with tradition, he said.

The NDP’s signs are similar to the ones they’ve used in previous elections, although with a slightly different shade of their signature colour “fiery orange.”

“It was more of a refresh this time around. We wanted to make sure the orange we were using was … fresh and young, so people would see the campaign as vibrant and dynamic.”

The NDP signs mention the name of leader Jagmeet Singh, but other than that they are very simple, displaying the party logo, and the photo and name of the local candidate.

Gauvin said the candidates were asked to dress professionally, but not too formally.

“We try to have relatable images and designs so people feel we are among them and not part of the … elite.”

Provincial and municipal bylaws regulate political campaign signs in federal elections. According to Élections Québec, campaign signs can be affixed to public property, such as lamp posts or telephone poles. They can also be erected on the grounds of properties belonging to the government, public bodies, public corporations, municipalities, school boards or service centres, although not on the buildings themselves.

They can also be displayed on private property, such as lawns, balconies and porches, but only with the owner’s consent, and property owners cannot receive payment for displaying campaign signs. Signs cannot be placed on trees, heritage buildings, stop signs and or on poles with traffic lights, and they can’t impede visibility of road signs. They can’t be placed higher than 2.1 metres from the ground.

Other than these rules, candidates and their local teams choose where to put their signs and how many to post.

“Usually, you focus where you think you have a chance to get the rebate,” Gauvin said. Elections Canada reimburses a candidate’s election expenses if they succeed in getting 10 per cent of voter support in their riding.

Sometimes, candidates will choose to put up a lot of signs even when they know their chances are slim, he said. “Sometimes, you think you are not popular, but you want to build a foundation for future campaigns.”

For example, Ruth Ellen Brosseau’s team put up signs in 2011 in the Berthier-Maskinongé riding, even though she was a “paper candidate” and not expected to win. Despite living in Ottawa and being away on vacation for part of the campaign, Brosseau was swept in on then-leader Jack Layton’s “orange wave.”

A longtime Quebec organizer for the Liberal Party of Canada, who asked not to be named, said party strategists briefly debated the utility of campaign signs this time before the election was called. In the end, the Liberals also went with tradition.

“There is an understanding, especially in Quebec, that you need signs,” the organizer said. “It’s a must to make sure people in your riding know there is a candidate and there is only so much you can do knocking on doors to ensure people know there is an election. I think candidates recognize that.”

In 2019, the Liberal signs had the photo of the local candidate on one side and then-leader Justin Trudeau’s photo on the other. This time, signs for local candidates make no mention of the leader.

“We elected our leader two weeks before calling the election, so on our signs there is no mention of Mark Carney,” the Liberal organizer said. “We had to make the signs before the leadership was decided.”

The Liberal signs feature candidates’ photos, and their names and riding in white letters on Liberal-red backgrounds. Liberal candidates in Quebec were asked to wear a splash of blue in their photos if possible, a nod to the royal blue of Quebec’s flag.

For the Green Party of Canada, election signs tend to be used sparingly, said Rod Leggett, the party’s senior adviser, strategic communications. A Montreal bylaw states all campaign signs must be recyclable, but the Green Party goes further, encouraging its candidates to reuse their signs whenever possible.

“The Green Party has always been mindful of the number of signs, and we are not into a competition of who has the most signs,” Leggett said. “As long as the candidate has enough visibility, we’re not into clutter.”

The Green Party’s signs have a new look this election. They are “simple in design and highlight the candidate,” Leggett said. “This reflects our decentralized philosophy … and how we are very focused on building local relationships, and not top-down ones like the average political party.

A Bloc Québécois source told The Gazette the party still uses campaign signs simply because the other parties do, and again it is the local riding organizations that decide how many signs to buy and where to put them. The party has candidates in all 78 Quebec ridings and by last week had signs up in about 60 of those, with more likely to appear soon, he said.

The BQ campaign signs feature photos stylized to look like they were taken on a Polaroid camera or in a photo booth “in order to suggest a familiar style, close to the people,” he said. Some of the signs include slogans, such as “Choose Quebec.” The party donates many of its signs to schools and daycares for reuse as crafting materials after elections.

The Gazette’s attempts to contact organizers with the Conservative Party for this story were unsuccessful.

The Conservatives, Liberals and NDP incorporate the maple leaf into their logos. The Bloc Québécois logo features a stylized letter “b” reminiscent of the fleur-de-lis on the Quebec flag. And the Green Party’s new logo is a “bold green circle” according to the party’s website, to symbolize “a thriving sustainable planet.”

Motulsky notes campaign signs in this election, at least so far, are particularly simple, with little policy messaging. This may be partly because Trump’s attacks on Canadian sovereignty and the economy have created chaos, and the parties need to keep their positioning flexible.

“It is rare that we have a campaign where there are issues appearing now that a couple of months ago, we didn’t even know about,” he said.