The second day of early voting in Knox County wrapped up today, Thursday April 16, and while the ballots themselves remain consistent across locations, the rules governing campaign signs are anything but.
Tuesday night, before the first day of early voting, campaigns placed their signs at all 11 early voting centers. When campaign workers returned Wednesday morning, many of those signs had been taken down.
In the Town of Farragut, officials enforce a combination of the Tennessee Freedom of Speech Act (TCA Title 2, Chapter 7, Section 143) and the town’s own sign ordinance. The town prohibits political or campaign signs on public rights-of-way or public property — including facilities used as polling places — without written consent from the authority in charge. This explicitly includes town-owned sites.
The ordinance allows one temporary political sign per candidate, issue, or subject on private property (with the owner’s consent), subject to size and timing limits in state law. For enforcement purposes, the public right-of-way extends 12 feet back from the curb (or the edge of pavement if there’s no curb). The town may remove any signs placed in violation.
Town representatives have indicated that if a campaign has a worker present at the polling location, they may keep one sign — but that worker must stay with it. One noted inconsistency: the town’s written regulation references the West Knox Senior Center, but this election’s early voting in Farragut is actually taking place at the Farragut Community Center (239 Jamestowne Boulevard).
Over in Halls, at the new early voting site (Faithway Baptist Church), campaigns were reportedly told midday Wednesday that 4×4 signs were not permitted. Those larger signs were subsequently removed by the campaigns themselves.
I spoke with several Republican campaigns yesterday about these issues. I suggested that multiple campaigns come together and address the Knox County Election Commission directly at one of their upcoming meetings. The goal would be simple: establish a clear, consistent rule across all early voting locations — for example, allowing one sign per candidate per site.
Had campaigns known the rules would vary this much from location to location (and sometimes change day to day), they could have adjusted the number and size of signs they ordered and deployed. Instead, workers spent valuable time reacting to shifting enforcement rather than engaging voters.
Early voting should be about making it easy and fair for citizens to participate — not about playing “sign whack-a-mole” with campaigns. The ballots are the same everywhere. The rules for how candidates can communicate with voters at those locations should be just as consistent.
Let’s treat our early voting sites with the same uniformity we expect from the election process itself.
