Carolina Politics Online

When candidates filed, they got information outlining the penalties for putting signs less than 11 feet from the road, Abernethy said. He said he sent a reminder e-mail to candidates during the primaries.

Still, both the candidates and the sitting council members have been surprised by the fine totals. Mayor Pat McCrory, the only city official who ran for office this year, was fined $200 in his failed bid for governor. Some candidates have contacted lawyers, they said.

Dan Roberts, who ran for a judge’s seat, found out the day after he lost the election that he was being charged $7,000 for 14 signs. He doesn’t know how he’s going to pay for it with empty campaign coffers or on his salary as an assistant prosecutor in Union County.

“It’s a humongous fine,” he said. “It was certainly a shock for me to open up that letter and see that amount.”

Hal Jordan, a Republican who lost his bid for county commissioner, had his fine reduced from $4,000 to $1,500 after he challenged it and Abernethy re-examined the photographs. Jordan said the fine is still unreasonable, and said he was upset that he never got a warning before the citation.

“Essentially, we’re being asked to pay a substantial fine, mostly for signs that were not placed by us,” he said.

Charlotte Observer

These fines are asburd.  $500 for a misplaced sign?  Let’s get real here.  I understand why the city has the ordinances and the burden it puts on them if they have to go around cleaning them up after the election, but these fines are extreme.  As someone who has run for office before, I know that it’s practically impossible to keep track of where all of your campaigns signs end up.  People come and pick them up and put them out for you and the best you can do is make everyone aware of the rules.  There is no possible way you can police it.  I remember getting a letter twice from the city when I ran warning me of an illegal campaign sign.  I would have loved to have taken care of it for them, but they never bothered to tell me where the damn thing was.  I never got fined so someone must have taken care of it or the city never followed through.

The other issue this presents a candidate is potential mischief from your opposition.

Some suggested that the rules open them up to sabotage by their opponents, who could bankrupt them simply by moving their signs. David Granberry, the county’s new Democratic Register of Deeds, was fined $11,200.

“Sign tricks are part of every election, but this year it’s more damaging to move them than to just steal them,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Even the City Council members who voted unanimously to increase the sign fines were astonished at the amount of money candidates were being charged.

And yet they passed the ordinance anyway.

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