Patio Inspector Condemns Three Porches Still Flying ‘Vote Pumpkin King’ Banners

DUNMORE — City Patio Inspector Howard Finch condemned three residential porches this week for continuing to display “Vote Pumpkin King” campaign banners a full week after the neighborhood’s unofficial Halloween decoration election concluded.

“The election is over,” Finch said, tapping his clipboard against the railing of the first condemned porch. “The Pumpkin King has been decided. It was the Hendersons’ twelve-foot skeleton, by a margin the election committee called ‘not close.’ Continuing to campaign after the results are certified is not festive. It is, under Patio Code Section 7.1, ‘lingering electoral signage,’ and it carries the same penalty as leaving your Christmas lights up until March, which is to say: public disappointment.”

The “Vote Pumpkin King” contest — an informal neighborhood tradition in which residents campaign for the title of best Halloween display — drew fourteen entries this year, including a haunted pirate ship, a “zombie HOA meeting” tableau, and one house that simply projected the word “BOO” onto its garage in letters six feet tall. Voting was conducted via QR code, with 312 ballots cast and what the election committee called “minimal fraud, mostly by toddlers voting twice.”

The three condemned porches belong to the second-, fifth-, and ninth-place finishers, all of whom have refused to remove their banners. “Second place says the recount is ongoing,” Finch reported. “There is no recount. The ballots were QR codes. Fifth place claims the banner is ‘vintage now.’ It has been up for nine days. Ninth place told me — and I am quoting — ‘the Pumpkin King is a state of mind.’”

Under the condemnation order, the porches are restricted to “ordinary porch use only” — rocking chairs, welcome mats, “at most one tasteful mum” — until the banners are removed and the inspector conducts a follow-up visit. “I will come back,” Finch said. “I always come back. I have a clipboard and nowhere else to be.”

The election committee has announced that next year’s contest will include a mandatory banner-removal pledge, signed in advance, and a new rule disqualifying any entry whose owner “campaigns like they’re running for actual office.” The Hendersons, meanwhile, have begun construction on what they describe only as “next year’s incumbent.”

“Democracy is beautiful,” Finch said, photographing the third banner for the file. “But democracy ends. The banners must also end. That is the social contract, and it is written on the back of every clipboard.”