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With this post I turn my attention to signs for candidates for Maryland State Senate, starting with District 9. Gail Bates is giving up her current House of Delegates seat for District 9A in order to run for this Senate seat, which became open when Allan Kittleman decided to run for Howard County Executive. Bates is unopposed in the Republican primary. On the Democratic side Ryan Frederic and Daniel Medinger are vying for the right to run against her. ...

Since election day is not far off it’s time to pick up the pace and look at the signs for the Maryland House of Delegates race in District 13. On the Democratic side there are five candidates for the three positions: the “Team 13” slate of Vanessa Atterbeary, Shane Pendergrass, and Frank Turner (along with Guy Guzzone for State Senate), and then Fred Eiland and Nayab Siddiqui as the “challengers.” On the Republican side there are only three candidates, Danny Eaton, Jimmy Williams, and Chris Yates, all of whom will go on to the general election. ...

Today we look at the signs in the House of Delegates race in District 12. On the Democratic side there are 10 candidates for the three positions (deep breath. . .): Brian Bailey, Jay Fred Cohen, Rebecca Dongarra, Eric Ebersole, Michael Gisriel, Terri Hill, Clarence Lam, Renée McGuirk-Spence, Adam Sachs, and Nick Stewart. On the Republican side there are only three candidates: Gordon Bull, Joe Hooe, and Rick Martel, all of whom will go on to the general election. ...

Next in line for a campaign sign critique is the race for the Maryland House of Delegates in District 9B. On the Democratic side the candidates are Tom Coale and Rich Corkran, one of whom will face off against either Bob Flanagan or Carol Loveless. Here are the signs, in alphabetical order by candidate, along with my comments, according to the criteria I’ve previously discussed. Full disclosure: I publicly endorsed Tom Coale in this race almost a year ago (my, how time flies!), but will try not to let that affect my aesthetic judgment. ...

We now come to the first of my posts on signs in the races for the Maryland House of Delegates, starting with District 9A (my own district, as it happens). On the Democratic side there are only two candidates for the two positions (Walter Carson and Ward Morrow), so both will proceed to the general election unchallenged. However on the Republican side the field is very crowded, with five candidates: Eric Bouchat, Trent Kittleman, Kyle Lorton, incumbent Warren Miller, and Frank Mirabile. One interesting consequence of this crowded field is that (with one exception) the GOP candidates are using their signs to try to stand out in various ways. ...

Sorry, I changed my plans and will not be doing the legislative races just yet, since I was able to find signs for all four of the Democratic candidates for Judge of the Orphans’ Court:1 incumbents Anne Dodd and Leslie Smith Turner and challengers Shari Chase and Nicole Bormel Miller. (There are only two Republican candidates for the three Orphans’ Court positions, Ellen Harrison and Emma Travis-Howard, both of whom will proceed to the general election. I’ve not seen signs yet for either of them.) ...

My next “sign-off” is for the race for Howard County State’s Attorney, in which incumbent Dario Broccolino faces fellow Democrat Rich Gibson in the 2014 primary. (There are no Republicans running for this position.) Unlike the race for Howard County Sheriff, each candidate has limited himself to one type of sign. (Broccolino has both large and small signs, but except for one small detail they’re simply different-sized versions of the same sign.1) So on to the judging, according to the criteria I’ve previously discussed. Here are the signs, in alphabetical order by candidate, along with my comments in my role as amateur design critic. ...

OK, the preliminaries are over, and here’s my first campaign sign 2014 face-off. I’m starting with the courthouse races, and in particular the race for Howard County Sheriff, which pits incumbent James Fitzgerald against challenger John Newnan in the Democratic primary. (John McMahon is unopposed in the GOP primary, and I wasn’t able to find a sign for him.) Both Fitzgerald and Newnan have multiple types of signs; I think I got pictures of all of Newnan’s but may have missed one of Fitzgerald’s. Here are the signs, in alphabetical order by candidate and from small to large for each candidate, along with my comments. ...

Thanks to those who sent in pictures of campaign signs for Eric Ebersole; I’m still looking for signs for other candidates mentioned in my previous post. I’ll soon start posting my opinions on signs I do have. In the meantime I wanted to recap some of my comments from last time on campaign signs and what I personally look for in judging them. I should say up front that it’s not clear at all that campaign signs are actually effective in persuading to vote for one candidate rather than another. As a 2012 Slate article notes, some research has shown that non-specific campaign signs urging people to vote (though not for a particular candidate) can be effective, but that says nothing about candidate-specific signs. On the other hand, a Vanderbilt University study seems to indicate that signs can be effective in promoting candidates in races in which they are a large number of candidates and voters have little information about them. There are some political consultants who feel strongly that yard signs are a waste of money, and others who are happy to advise you on which types of signs are more effective. ...

Pity the poor political candidates of Howard County. It’s hard enough running a campaign as it is, but they also have pesky bloggers grading their performances in public forums, evaluating their direct mail pieces, and keeping track of their social media activities. In an upcoming series of posts I’ll be adding to their woes by rendering aesthetic judgements on their campaign signs. (I did this once before after the 2010 elections, but now I’ll be doing it in a more timely manner.) ...