Colorado Political Yard Signs: HOA Content-Neutral Rule and Election Laws

Section 38-33.3-106.5(1) applies "Notwithstanding any provision in the declaration, bylaws, or rules and regulations of the association to the contrary," so it overrides an association's own governing documents. Subsection (1)(c) protects a sign displayed by "the owner or occupant of a unit," which reaches a resident who is not the owner. The protected locations are property within the boundaries of the unit and a window of the unit. Common elements are not mentioned.

The subsection is written for all signs, not only political ones. An association cannot prohibit or regulate window signs or yard signs "on the basis of their subject matter, message, or content," except that it may prohibit signs bearing commercial messages. For a political yard sign, this means an association cannot single out campaign signs or write a rule that turns on which candidate or ballot measure the sign names.

An association keeps the power to "establish reasonable, content-neutral sign regulations based on the number, placement, or size of the signs or on other objective factors." The current text of subsection (1)(c) sets no pre-election or post-election display window and no minimum sign size. The source note to the section records that subsection (1)(c) was amended and subsection (1)(b) repealed in 2021, effective September 7.

Two election statutes reach signs statewide. C.R.S. § 1-13-714 forbids electioneering, defined to include the display of campaign posters and signs, within any polling location, or in any public street or room or in any public manner within one hundred feet of any building in which a polling location or drop-off location is located, as publicly posted by the designated election official, or within one hundred feet of a drop box. The ban applies on the day of any election or during the time when voting is permitted. C.R.S. § 1-13-113 makes it an offense to remove, deface, or destroy a lawfully placed sign from any premises to which it was delivered during the period beginning forty-five days before and ending four days after any election. The owner of the premises, an authorized agent of the owner, or a person charged with enforcing a state law, ordinance, or regulation may remove a sign without penalty when it was placed without the owner's permission, violates state law or a county or municipal ordinance or regulation, or is in place outside that period.

A person who removes, defaces, or destroys a lawfully placed sign from any premises to which it was delivered, in the period set by C.R.S. § 1-13-113, is punished upon conviction as provided in § 1-13-111, which makes an election offense with no other specified penalty a class 2 misdemeanor, and must pay the cost of replacement. Section 1-13-714(3) applies the same penalty section to electioneering. Section 38-33.3-106.5 prints no fine specific to its sign subsection.