Joy McCall was driving back from a night shift at the hospital Sunday morning when she noticed black marker scribbles all over one of her husband’s campaign signs.

She brought it home and put it in the family’s garage. Later, when Jeremy McCall reviewed the damage, he noticed the words scrawled on his signs, including Jimmy McTard and autismaloid.

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“When I realized they wrote offensive things about people with disabilities . . . to know it’s a targeted attack toward vulnerable people, that just makes me really frustrated,” McCall said Monday.

“That’s really beyond the pale.”

He said he reported the damage to police because some of the scribbles were drawn across his throat like a rope or razor line.

“(It) really made me feel strongly as both as a candidate and a resident and dad that there has to be a line drawn somewhere,” McCall said.

The Ward 11 candidate said he has about 120 election signs across the south London ward that stretches south from Horton Street to Commissioners Road and west roughly between Wellington and Wonderland roads.

The same day his sign was defaced, McCall said another was kicked down and he got a social media message accusing him of violating London’s election sign bylaw.

I’ve been campaigning on the idea that it’s time for a change in Ward 11. Someone had the confidence to write a slur against differently abled persons, and draw my throat being slit, and complete radio silence from community leaders. I think I may just be right….#ldnvotes pic.twitter.com/eKu1kSeLtL

Sign wars are a persistent problem in elections, including vinyl banners that go missing due to wind or theft.

More sinister attacks, including some apparently fuelled by racism, have been a reality for London civic election candidates of colour in many campaigns.

For candidates, defaced, damaged or stolen signs pose another, more practical problem: the cost. Election signs are expensive – especially with recent supply chain woes driving up the price of materials like Coroplast plastic signboard – and, in some cases, replacements are simply unaffordable.

Ward 1 candidate Ryan Cadden said he could only afford to buy 10 signs. The quote he got for 25, at close to $1,000, was beyond his self-financed campaign’s means, he said.

Cadden said he’s not taking campaign donations because he knows residents in his ward have been hit hard by inflation.

“I am not a career politician . I want to . . . take the real issues to city hall. One . . . right n ow is inflation and the cost of living,” he said. “ I don’t really think it’s right for politicians to . . . ask people for money when pretty much everybody is struggling to get by.”

Campaign signs remain popular despite the cost, risk of vandalism and other issues.

Some municipalities, for example, ban signs along major roads, but even in those cases, voters can put up lawn signs on their own properties.

Every day, Cadden goes out to make sure his signs are still up. He’s already lost one, and the other nine need daily adjustment.

“To have those signs go missing and oftentimes not be able to replace them, it really hurts,” he said.   “I know another person in our ward has gone to making signs out of cardboard because of the cost.”

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