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via WTOP

WASHINGTON — The candidates running in November’s midterm election may have completed their door-to-door stumping, but the campaign rhetoric has not yet vacated local neighborhoods.

Residents throughout the area must still contend with the hundreds of campaign signs and posters skewered on lamp posts and stuck in tree boxes.

Each jurisdiction has laws regulating those signs, such as the District’s rule to remove them within 30 days of the election. But enforcing these rules is a challenge.

Montgomery County charges $500 for not removing campaign signs promptly following the election.

Political campaigns in Fairfax County must first post a bond before receiving a permit to put up the signs. If they don’t then take them back down, they don’t get their $100 back.

However, the near impossibility of proving who actually put a sign up makes it difficult to issue fines.

Most local governments send crews out to take the signs down. But residents are encouraged to take them down themselves, or bring the signs to the attention of their local department of public works.

If you still see signs littering your neighborhood, call us on the WTOP Talkback line before 9 a.m. at 1-877-222-1035, and we’ll call out the corresponding candidate. Or, post the details here or on the Facebook page, where you can become a friend of WTOP.

WTOP’s Mark Segraves contributed to this report. Follow him on Twitter.

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