Campaign signage: What’s wrong with this picture?

HONOLULU—With election season heating up, and the absentee voting for the primaries already in progress, Oahu residents are proudly displaying their favorite candidates’ signs on their lawns and fences. In fact, many homes have become veritable signage galleries, demonstrating varying levels of curatorial logic. Driving around town, I’ve noticed some strange configurations, as evidenced below. Can anyone shed some light on this strange phenomenon?

It may be that candidate volunteers are drawn, like termites to your living room ceiling lamp on a hot Hawaii summer night, to corner houses with big fences or grassy lawns most viewable by rush hour traffic. Maybe it’s also that the owners of such prime political real estate just don’t know how to say “no” to bright-eyed, perky volunteers with a friendly smile. Either way, it’s made for some magnificent pop art within our neighborhoods—collages of some of the most interesting headshots, slogans, and font styles we’ll ever see in one place. Until next election year.

Honolulu City Council’s Resolution 10-31 cites Hawaii’s outdoor advertising law, HRS Chapter 445, Part IV, which is supposed to protect Hawaii’s natural beauty by regulating the use of billboards and other outdoor advertising devices. The Council intends to regulate Honolulu’s campaign signs while being mindful of people’s First Amendment rights.

A bill proposed by Resolution 10-31 would keep political signs under four feet by two feet or a total of eight square feet in area. Political signs would not be able to be posted more than 120 days before an election or 30 days afterward. A violation, under the bill, would mean that particular candidate for office or the candidate’s committee would be subject to a criminal fine between $25 and $500—meaning campaign volunteers would have to monitor what people are putting up city-wide. It might also make for some interesting political theater should one campaign decide to violate the rules using their competitor’s signs.

In the meantime, we’ve still got a lot more political pop art to capture before November’s elections.

Send us your photos of similar oddities in your ‘hood and we’ll add them to our collection. Email [email protected] or post to http://www.facebook.com/theHI. Please be sure to note the streets and neighborhood. Mahalo!

12th Avenue and Kilauea Avenue.

16th Avenue and Waialae Avenue.

16th Avenue and Waialae Avenue.

17th Avenue and Waialae Avenue.

Kalanianaole Higway in Waimanalo.