CAMPAIGN SIGNS: Right Of Way Rules

As Election Day gets closer some people want to show support for their candidate by putting up campaign signs, but there are some places you are not allowed to place them.

Brooks Glassknapp is the Iowa Department of Transportation advertising management supervisor. He is responsible for the regulation of campaign signs under the 1960′s Highway Beautification Act.

“The public highway includes the highway surface, and the shoulder the foreslope, the ditch the backslope the entire area dedicated for the highway purpose is the public road right of way,” says Glassknapp.

Signs cannot be on public right of way, but can go on private property only with owner’s permission.

Campaigns follow the rules most of the time.

“If the sign is near the traveled portion of the highway and is constituted an immediate hazard, we will remove the sign immediately, and then contact the campaign headquarters after the fact,” says Glassknapp.

If the DOT does remove signs the campaigns can pick them up.

Sometimes they send registered letters to tell a campaign to move signs.