Ask ELi: Too Soon for Campaign Signs?

An ELi reader asked: “Erik Altmann has several campaign signs up in the Glencairn neighborhood. I think those are supposed to go up 30 days from an election. I might be wrong but if he’s exempting himself from the rules he should take the signs down. Can one of your reporters check it out?”

The reader is talking about the election that will take place on November 5 for City Council.

The City of East Lansing used to have an ordinance that governed for how long one could have out a sign related to a campaign or ballot question. But these days, such a law is not in effect.

Asked about this by ELi, East Lansing City Clerk Jennifer Shuster explained, “The restrictions on when yard signs could be displayed were stricken by the Courts as unconstitutional so they were removed from our code.”

Therefore Altmann’s re-election campaign signs are not against the law.

As a reminder, there are six people total running for three open seats on City Council. The others are Lisa Babcock, Jessy Gregg, John Revitte, Warren Stanfield, and incumbent Mark Meadows.

Stanfield has had signs up for several months. We asked the other candidates whether they plan to put signs up soon, and one responded in a way that indicated that that candidate thought there was a general understanding that everyone would wait until 30 days before the election.

But that obviously that isn’t the case, since Altmann has many signs up around town now.

Revitte, Gregg, and Babcock all told us they expect to have signs up soon. Meadows did not respond to the question.

Conventional wisdom in East Lansing holds that candidates win by knocking doors and getting yard signs up.

Our election coverage:

ELi is happy to take questions about the election, and we will be providing fact-checking of campaign literature when we see factual problems. We will soon be bringing you a survey asking you what questions you want to see asked of the candidates.

In the meantime, you can check out our voter guide, which provides links to profiles as well as links to our reporting on how the two incumbents voted on controversial issues.