Hacked Va. road sign calls Clinton a 'b****,' says 'Vote Trump'

LAKE RIDGE, Va. (WJLA) - Police say someone changed the text of a road sign to a message insulting Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and encouraging voters to back Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

The electronic sign, located in Prince William County, flashed three messages. The first read: “CROOKED HILARY (sic),” followed by “IS A B****” and ending with “VOTE TRUMP.”

Police say the sign was initially placed at the Tackett’s Mill commuter lot near an elections office to encourage people to vote.

Commuter Kenneth Acoff noticed the sign when he entered the lot on Tuesday.

“The message was inappropriate, given that it declared support for a specific candidate, while using an offensive and indecent word for their opposition,” Acoff said.

“We all were shocked when we got off the bus,” said commuter Eleanor Thompson. “[It was] very unpleasant, and very nasty.”

The rented sign was one of a number of signs the Prince William County Office of Elections had arranged to have placed throughout the county. Until it was tampered with, the sign had flashed messages with information about absentee voting.

A box holding a computer on the side of the rented sign appears to have been left unlocked. That seems to be how the message was tampered with.

A group of commuters tellABC7 they came together after seeing the vulgar word on the sign to try to get rid of it.

“All I did was hit ‘blank sign,’” said Adrienne Castro, who said she figured out how to operate the sign’s computer on the fly. “And I’m not a techie person, I have to be very honest with you.”

More than 24 hours after the sign had been tampered with, the box with the computer inside was still unlocked and anyone who wanted to could log in and write another message.

Michele White, the general registrar with the Prince William County Office of Elections, emailed ABC7 Wednesday night that the sign vendor had been contacted earlier in the day and told to lock the computer boxes and check the messages on all the signs in the county.

But when we informed her the box on the tampered sign was still unlocked, she later came out and together with a police officer removed the computer’s keyboard.

The commuters who helped get rid of the message Tuesday night say what they did wasn’t about partisanship, it was about removing a vulgar word. And they think what they did sends a message during what’s been a nasty election year.

“Regardless of one’s political beliefs, we respect one another, and enough is enough,” said commuter Ian Houston. “Let’s make it a goal to turn off these messages and make an effort to make more positive messages."