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The Lawn Sign Game

Posted on October 25th, 2010 by Staks

With a little over a week to go before Election Day, it is time to start playing the Lawn Sign Game as a predictor of the election. It is a pretty easy game to play and can be great fun for small road trips. While it isn’t a perfect prediction of local election outcomes, it does give you a good idea who might win.

Here is how the game is played. When you drive around an area, it is important to notice signs for the various candidates. On public property, candidates often put up multiple sign. This only count as one if they are in the same area of public property. So if you see four signs grouped together for the same candidate on public property that is only one point. Public property signs are one point because they really just represent the effort of the campaign and not really any votes.

When you see signs on private property such as a business or on someone’s lawn count as two points per household. Larger homes may have multiple signs to cover various angles, but that still only counts as two points. One house, one vote! But since this represents an actual voter or multiple voters, that is worth more points than a sign on public property.

Bumper stickers for a candidate are worth three points. Most people just aren’t willing to put a bumper sticker on their car for a candidate except in a presidential election year. So if you see a bumper sticker for a lower office that represents not only a vote, but also a high level of enthusiasm.

You can score this just for a quick trip to or from work, when you go out to the grocery store, or you can keep a rolling tally for a day or up until Election Day. Feel free to post your Lawn Sign Scores and let’s see if it is a good predictor for the election, or just a fun little game.