It’s been just a couple days since the General Election so it’s no surprise that candidate signs still litter — and that is the correct word — our landscape. It’s an indictment of local elections that often the campaigns — and results — are more about who can erect the most signs at the busiest intersections than who has the best ideas on how to enhance the quality of life of the constituents.

We must say that we can’t recall an election when so many signs were erected so far in advance of the election. The local political machines, particular President Obama’s get-out-the-vote team, are to be commended for their energy and effort. Well done.

The effectiveness of campaign signs rests almost entirely on the ability of a voter who is entering the booth to recall the name of a candidate. These signs simply don’t add much to the debate as there is little room to make promises that will later be broken.

Forgive our cynicism — but that is what happens when we look out the car window and see signs remaining for an election that has been settled. Our guess is most candidates would have promised a voter that their signs would be quickly removed following the election.

The job to get them out of our collective eyesight falls on the candidates themselves and their supporters who hammered them into the ground. But that shouldn’t stop any of us from plucking one from the ground. The stakes might even come in handy in the yard or garden.

We do want to extend some kudos to Rep. Charles Graham, who on Wednesday could be seen uprooting signs at the voting site on Fayetteville Road in Lumberton. Graham didn’t even face re-election Tuesday, having won another term during the May primary, so it’s apparent that he was simply helping out a fellow candidate tidy up the landscape.

So we encourage the primary candidates whose signs linger to get out there and remove them. It is easy enough to identify

those who don’t do that promptly — their names are on the signs.

If they move slowly, they risk the wrong image remaining in a voter’s mind the next time that person enters a voting booth.