Do election posters still serve a purpose?

I recently discovered that my doorbell wasn't working. It was just little over one month to the local and European elections and not a single candidate had darkened my door.

Clearly, something was wrong. In the run up to the 2011 General Election they were tripping over themselves to get some face time at my front door. There weren't too many from Fianna Fail, though, which was understandable given the political and economic climate at the time.

So I checked my doorbell last week and discovered it was on the blink. Case closed, or so I thought. But neighbours of mine with fully functional doorbells and knockers also reported a dearth of canvassers on their doorsteps. There were leaflets hastily shoved through letterboxes, right enough, but no one was seemingly willing to engage with householders on the pertinent issues of the day. I would have welcomed the opportunity to have chat. Who knows, they may even have been offered a cup of tea and a scone.

In fairness, you'd have to feel a degree of sympathy for candidates from Fine Gael and Labour, particularly those seeking election for the first time. They have to run the gauntlet of public anger over everything from property tax to water charges - not to mention that pothole at the end of the road. Like a bloody moon crater, so it is.

Similarly, the Fianna Fail boys and girls will be getting a hard time over the state they left the house in last time they were in charge. Biffo and Bertie may be gone but their ghosts still haunt the party.

We are always polite to the Independents when they call to the house, as we are to the various left wing candidates. It's somewhat disappointing when we learn that they're not from one of the bigger parties because we can't really have a go at them over anything. It would be different if we had Ming or Mick Wallace in our constituency, I suppose.

Last week we were reminded that the local and European elections were just a cat's whisker away when the ubiquitous posters went up. ESB Networks warned against placing posters on its poles or structures. Apart from the obvious risks to life and limb, the company has previously experienced incidents where election posters have caught fire following contact with the electricity network, resulting in loss of supply to customers and damaged infrastructure.

So instead of debating the election issues, we got caught up in issues such as posters falling down; being up too high; being down too low; posters blowing down; blocking traffic lights etc. And what about the cable ties left behind when the posters come down? It would keep poor Joe Duffy busy for a week, so it would.

A colleague of mine mused if election posters were somewhat archaic, a relic of the past in an era dominated by social media. He had a point. But even the most tech-savvy candidate can only reach so many of the electorate through Facebook and Twitter and not all voters have embraced the brave new world of the internet. So posters remain the favourite tool for building a profile with voters. It's an expensive and labour-intensive way of getting your message out there. Personally I'd prefer if candidates spent their limited budgets on advertisements in their favourite local newspaper but I would say that, wouldn't I? If nothing else, the very presence of posters - annoying and unsightly as they are - might help remind people that there are two elections taking place on May 23 and they should get out and vote.

In the meantime, I hope to see an increasing number of candidates at my door in the remaining weeks of the election campaigns. Just remember that the doorbell doesn't work so please knock.