Mere hours after putting up several campaign signs along a road in Readington, N.J., Vincent Panico, got a ping on his phone.

After previous signs disappeared, Mr. Panico had attached Apple AirTags — quarter-size tracking devices — to his new signs. Now, they were on the move, and he suspected a thief.

What Mr. Panico, a Republican, did not expect was that the thief was John Albanese, his political rival on the town’s board. “We watched the signs moving down the road to his house,” said Mr. Panico. “I thought, You got to be kidding me — this is a guy who sits on the township committee.”

Mr. Panico called the police and Mr. Albanese, a former Readington mayor and also a Republican, was charged with theft.

As the nation nears the end of an especially fraught election season, it is perhaps unsurprising that campaign signs in yards and roadways have become targets for theft and vandalism. To some extent, they always have been.

But the proliferation of doorbell and surveillance cameras has turned sign owners into sleuths. And the ability to track signs after they have been uprooted, often straight to the thief’s door, can lead to a comeuppance — or a confrontation.

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