A large election sign promoting Airdrie-Cochrane UCP candidate Peter Guthrie has been dusted off, reinforced and is back up at the west entrance to the Gleneagles neighborhood. Another Guthrie sign was discovered on a dark road spewed across a road in the Bearspaw area, reportedly complete with boot marks and spit.

Only days into the provincial elections the first casualties, as usual, are the election signs of candidates. While these two were not defaced with racial slurs like one for Alberta Party candidate Joanne Gui in the Calgary-Edgemont riding, it's not uncommon to see election signs removed, damaged or defaced.

For first-time political candidate Guthrie it's all new and unexpected.

"I think that it's sad that it has to come to that," says Guthrie. "We should all be running on our platform, putting that out there, and conducting ourselves professionally."

He believes such incidents will only serve to fire up his team of 150-plus volunteers.

"I think something like this will is going to nothing but motivate them."

The Guthrie campaign started with 1,000 lawn signs and just yesterday they ordered another 250 to meet the demand.

"We have maybe a hundred or so to put out as requests come in. We've been very active from a signs' perspective. That team is really working hard."

Signs remain a huge part of elections and there are set rules on how they are placed on private and public property. It is legal to damage, deface or remove any signs that meet those rules.

NDP Steve Durrell says he has not received any reports of his signs being defaced.

Durrell is currently preparing for the official opening of his headquarters early next week.