But don’t whine about it.  Go on the offensive.

Campaigns and Elections magazine offers these helpful tips:

Earning media from yard sign thieves

A Google News search for “yard signs” returns 39,000 news results in just the last month. Long story short, the media loves to report on yard signs—including sign theft and vandalism. When a supporter recounts their story of a stolen sign, ask if you can include information about the theft in a press release. Once the campaign has accumulated a few similar stories, issue a press release decrying the actions of your opponent’s supporters, and offer quotes from your supporters about the purported thefts. With any luck, you’ll get a sympathetic news story.

Sign theft and volunteerism

Angry supporters are ripe for a volunteer ask, and yard sign theft is a powerful source for supporter anger. When a supporter calls the field office to share their story and ask for another yard sign, you’re likely to get a “yes” from a volunteer ask because they’re motivated by anger and want to reciprocate. In addition, many campaigns successfully trade a sign for a volunteer shift, which also works well.

Turning sign theft into dollars

Using the same process as above, small dollar contributions in exchange for a yard sign are common, and upset supporters will be quick to open up their wallets for a few dollars to replace their sign for virtuous reasons and spite alike.

Ben Donahower is a contributing editor to the free guide, Get Out The Vote To Win, and a campaign veteran. You can connect with Ben on Twitter at @iapprovethismsg.

Of particular interest to Libertarian candidates, he writes:

In small races where a candidate isn’t campaigning much at all, the other candidate should frontend sign distribution along with the field campaign as much as possible. If there isn’t the budget for that, putting signs out just a few days or weeks before the election will have an impact. This is in line with a recent study out of Vanderbilt University.

Last year, political scientists, Cindy Kam and Elizabeth Zechmeister found that not only did yard signs increase candidate name recognition but also that nearly one-in-four people who drove by the sign over just a few days time preferred that candidate. In the experiment, the researchers made yard signs for a fictitious candidate, “Ben Griffin” for a real Nashville at-large council seat election. The signs were placed two months out from the election just as campaigns were beginning to connect with voters. Three days after the signs were posted, a local school parent-teacher organization sent out an email asking recipients to take an online survey.

The survey asked respondents who they supported for the at-large Nashville council seat listing five actual candidates and two fictitious ones, including Ben Griffin. Respondents listed their top three choices for the post and nearly 25 percent of those who had driven by the Ben Griffin sign put him in their top three, which was 10-percent higher than the control group. Essentially, not only do yard signs increase name recognition, but they also translate directly into votes in low-information races.

Notice how the study points out voters had “driven by the Ben Griffin sign.”  They did not “stop to read the Ben Griffin sign.” That brings up an important point when designing your campaign’s yard sign.

Readability is key, and less is more.

Other than legally-required disclaimers or other language, a yard sign should include only the candidate’s name (generally last name only or most recognizable) and the office he or she seeks (as short as possible.)  In some states, you may be required to put “vote for” or “for” if you are not the incumbent.

Generally you do NOT place slogans, your party name, district number, website addresses, photographs or other information on a yard sign.  Just name (generally only the last name) and office (as short as possible, such as “State House” instead of “Texas State House of Representatives, District 150.”  People know what state they live in, and they don’t need to know their district number.  It’s already on the ballot they’re handed.)

People do not READ yard signs, they SEE them.  Placing additional text or information offers more distractions in the few seconds a voter sees a sign.

As for colors, white letters on a dark color (blue is best) works best.  One color yard signs are generally cheaper than two or more colors.

And don’t waste money on corrugated plastic or plastic bags signs, unless you can get them cheaper than laminated posterboard, which is the most effective material.  Signmakers will tell you plastic is more durable, but yard signs are only outdoors for a few months at most.

A campaign yard sign has one main purpose, to increase positive name recognition.  That’s why your name, as it appears on the ballot, and the office are the ONLY two things that should be on a yard sign.

The most common mistake campaigns make when designing a yard sign is adding too much stuff. Your average voter doesn’t spend more than a few seconds looking over a direct mail piece, so imagine how little time that same voter spends on reading a campaign sign.

We typically don’t expect folks to get much out of a yard sign except for some increased name identification for the candidate, which brings us to the question of adding so-called Quick Response barcodes to campaign signage. Some strategists have suggested it’s time these black boxes become a requirement, just like having the candidate’s name and the office he’s running for.

More often than not, though, QR codes will simply add clutter and are not useful to the campaign. I will hedge a bit here and add that good designers can incorporate QR codes into the design of a sign in a way that doesn’t detract significantly from the candidate’s name and the office he’s seeking—the most critical elements of any campaign lawn sign…

If you do decide to incorporate QR codes into signs, literature or mail:

…make sure you’re getting the most out of the QR code by sending the voter to appropriate content. Just linking to the campaign website isn’t effective. Some of the best uses of QR codes on campaign yard signs:

• Connecting the voter to the candidate’s social media networks on Facebook or Twitter.
• Signing up the voter for text message or email alerts from the campaign.
• Asking the voter to indicate whether he is a supporter or not.
• Sending the voter to a biographical or issue-based video of the candidate or a mobile optimized landing page with similar content.