Opinion: Election posters are a 'matter of democracy'

The many posters erected by candidates of all political parties and none at election time are either part of the furniture of democracy or a ‘visual clutter’ to be consigned to approach roads to our towns and villages.

Candidates were up bright and early on the morning that the election was declared to put up their posters, even as Taoiseach Simon Harris was on his way to Áras an Uachtaráin to get President Michael D Higgin’s approval for the dissolution of the Dáil.

The posters are as much a part of the tradition of elections as any of the legal formalities.

In past years, however, many of them have remained in place for far too long afterwards, to become unsightly and weather-beaten.

That unwelcome part of the tradition was one of the reasons why well-intentioned Tidy Towns committees asked politicians not to erect posters within the 50km limits, which led to a huge falling-off in the number of posters being put up. 

Not every politician adheres to the policy, but most do.

It’s a policy, however, and not a law. The law is that it is permitted to put up posters in towns and villages and along main roads during the campaign, but there’s a deadline by which they must be taken down after polling day.

If they’re not down within that period, the local authority can impose a fine.

The posters had been put up in my local village of Baile Mhúirne by the Sunday following that first Friday. 

They were for local Fianna Fáil candidate Aindrias Moynihan. 

Because it’s a gaeltacht area, he had gone to the trouble of having the posters in Irish, with his name spelled as Gaeilge. 

A good reason, in my opinion, to allow his posters to remain aloft. In other parts of Cork North West, the posters referred to his name in English.

By Monday morning, however, the posters were gone. I posted a message on the Ballyvourney Noticeboard, asking why they had been taken down. Indeed, had they ever been there?

There was a response from the Ballyvourney Tidy Towns committee to the effect that they had been removed by the candidate, “in co-operation of the request for the village to remain poster-free within the 50km limits, as many villages and towns are requesting”.

While I respect the work done by Tidy Towns committees and the many volunteers, I consider this a matter of democracy.

The law is perfectly adequate to deal with election posters. Further restriction outside these parameters is not needed.

Previously, posters were made of cardboard and they degraded over time and could not be used again. Nowadays, they’re made of sterner stuff and can last for years.

I saw an Independent candidate in Limerick, Richard O’Donoghue, sticking an up-to-date picture of his face on an older poster — “Putting an old head on young shoulders” is how he described it.

While these posters may represent visual clutter to some, to others they are vital aids to the election process. 

Analysis carried out after the last general election, in 2020, found that there was a turnout dip in areas where there was a ‘poster ban’. 

Research 

Political scientist Luke Field, formerly of University College Cork and now of the University of Iceland, carried out his research on the 2019 local elections and the 2020 general election.

There was a dip of 8.8% in poster-less areas in Cork during the local election and a reduction, on average, of 3.6% in the turnout at boxes impacted by poster bans, he says.

At a time when democracy is under threat, due to misinformation and disinformation online along with voter apathy, is such a dip in turnout an acceptable price to pay for less ‘visual clutter’?

While we put up with a rash of online advertising by politicians, not everyone is on social media all day and some. Also, there are some that may not be able to tell real political information from the fake stuff.

The problem is that politicians have been vilified to such an extent that they’re yielding meekly. 

They’re being told that they are ‘visual clutter’ and their posters are destined for landfill. They’re untidy. 

They should remove themselves from public view. Other posters, for events and circuses and the like, stay up for long periods of time and no action is taken.

But maybe these poster-exclusion zones, which push posters out to the countryside, are not the answer. 

Have we thought of solutions like community notice boards, similiar to those I’ve seen in France and other mainland European countries? France is a good example: They value democracy because they had a revolution to fight for it.

We also fought for democracy here in Ireland; we shouldn’t discard its furniture like rubbish.

I will express my views on politicians at the ballot box. Irrespective of what preference I give any politician, and for whatever reason, I will respect them for putting themselves forward for leadership positions in our communities.

Given the apathy toward public representatives, it is little wonder that more and more senior politicians, who have done the State some service, are retiring and fewer young people are interested in a life in politics.

Perhaps they have brought this upon themselves: We can all be angry about things like the €330k bike shed or the €1.4m security hut or the €2bn+ children’s hospital.

We have our vote and posters are part of the political furniture, there for a short time only to help us inform ourselves of who our politicians are and, broadly, what they stand for. That is the only way we should elect or reject our representatives.