Election mess
Here we go again! In a month or so we will be going to the polls, this time to vote for members of the European Parliament and of local authorities. More about the elections themselves another time. For now, this question: do the parties – and more importantly, do we – need all these election posters? Uniquely in Ireland the parties smother the country with smaller posters on every lamp post. It creates a horrible mess. And does it actually persuade anyone to vote in a particular way?
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University Blog 
May 7, 2009 at 8:34 am
I entirely agree. I hate those posters, they look awful, obscure more important signs, and even now they’re not taken down fast enough or tidily enough. And it does seem to be a particularly Irish thing: other countries don’t do this, or to nothing like the same extent.
May 7, 2009 at 11:16 am
Yesterday the Green Party festooned lower Killarney Road in Bray with just about the ugliest posters yet to spoil the national landscape. This (Thursday) morning the Green posters are gone, replaced by Sinn Fein, Labour and Fine Gael posters. No doubt these posters will be torn down and replaced by Fianna Fail posters in due course. Pathetic.
May 7, 2009 at 3:07 pm
One Labour Party candidate by then name of McGarry I think in Sligo has refused to erect these posters as he thinks they have no influence and are a waste of money. They roughly cost approximately €10 for a full colour poster – that are 48×32 inches. Fianna Fail and the Greens have to some extend used biodegradable versions of these during this election.
I do think they have advantages but the public’s tolerance of them is beginning to falter. Hence the recent changes in legislation to combat early postering and more importantly the removal of the posters
May 7, 2009 at 6:19 pm
I don’t think that the posters are actually helping their campaigns at all. All they do over the campaign is drill their overly made-up faces into our heads so much that we wouldn’t want to vote for them.
Also I don’t think we’d like to be reminded of them, every single lamp-post…
May 8, 2009 at 1:28 pm
They take them down, they are only there for a short period and having been in the UK for two elections, where there are very few posters, they make a big difference: they inject an appropriate awareness into the general atmosphere.
I just wish they’d cut down the cable ties when they take down the posters.
May 10, 2009 at 7:07 pm
In relation to the cable ties – they are meant to remove them also.
To the disinterested voter – but one who still votes out of a diluted sense of civic duty – the posters are important – and that’s not my opinion, it is the opinion of many of my friends who couldn’t care less about elections – but vote – the posters remind them of who is running, and they will remember significant stories about candidates they like / dislike from their cursory glances at papers / news.
I know this is not the most responsible way to vote – but its probably the most common.
August 19, 2009 at 9:22 am
The recent election saw a level of posters to a scale we’ve never seen before. It was absolutley ridiculous and along with looking ugly and ridiculous, in some cases provided road hazards and blocked the view of motorists.