Apple AirTags, the button-size geotracking device, have become a tool in the rough-and-tumble world of local elections, where lawn signs often end up stolen, vandalized or run over. Candidates tired of dirty tricks are hiding AirTags in their signs. Tracking the device’s pings has led to the doorsteps of alleged sign snatchers and, in some cases, candidates’ opponents. The stings have left snatchers dumbfounded, reports the Wall Street Journal. Some have been charged with theft, criminal mischief and receiving stolen property. “I just wanted it to stop,” said John Dittmore, running in a Republican primary for a Brevard County commissioner's seat in Florida, got an AirTag after several of his campaign signs vanished over three days in May.
Dittmore put up a sign with the tracking device at an intersection where others had disappeared. When his wife got a text showing the sign moving, he called the police after tracking the AirTag to a pickup truck parked 8 miles away. Two teens were charged with criminal mischief and grand theft for taking nine of his signs, which, with their stands, had a total value of more than $1,100. Stealing campaign signs is common. Some police departments and local governments issue reminders that stealing a sign is a crime. Mike Lambrechts said some of his campaign lawn signs were run over and “flattened out like pancakes” when he ran in 2022 for a seat on the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., City Commission, in Florida. Hee used campaign funds to purchase AirTags, which cost $80 for a four pack. When he noticed a sign with one of the geotrackers had moved from a lawn, Lambrechts traced it to a car parked in the driveway of the home of one of his opponents. The opponent told police that a homeowner had given her campaign aide permission to remove the sign and that it wasn’t stolen. The opponent, who wasn’t charged with any crime, also asked Lambrechts where he had hidden the AirTag. Lambrechts responded, “These are millennial solutions…for modern problems.”