Candidates on both sides of a historic race to seat Santa Clara County’s first Vietnamese American supervisor say their campaign signs have been stolen, torn and defaced. One San Jose leader wants to investigate who’s behind it.
District 7 San Jose Councilmember Bien Doan said his office is looking into the theft of campaign signs supporting former San Jose Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen, who is running for the county Board of Supervisors District 2 seat — and plans to file a formal complaint by early next week. It’s unclear who the complaint will name as an alleged culprit, as Doan’s office didn’t have an immediate answer.
“My office will be filing a complaint with the Board of Fair Campaign and Political Practices and requesting a full investigation into this matter with the Fair Political Practices Commission,” Doan told San José Spotlight.
Nguyen didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Her opponent Betty Duong, chief of staff for District 2 Supervisor Cindy Chavez, said she hopes Doan will look into the theft of her signs as well. She said a supporter in Alum Rock called her last month to report people “running up and down the street” taking her signs from yards.
Duong said banners and signs have also been defaced or removed in the neighborhoods of Japantown, Northside, Seven Trees, Communications Hill and along Monterey Road.
“If the councilmember is going to launch an investigation I hope he’s also inclusive of me,” Duong told San José Spotlight. “Bottom line, stealing campaign signs from anyone is not cool and I don’t condone or support it and think it’s wrong.”
Stealing a sign can constitute petty theft, a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment and/or fines up to $1,000 in California.
Duong provided San José Spotlight photos of a man carrying her crumpled up signs, as well as another video and photo of defaced signs.
Nguyen has provided photos of torn signs, but previously told San José Spotlight she has not received video evidence.
But a video circulating around social media claims to have caught someone in the act of removing and collecting Nguyen’s signs. The video shows a man towing a stack of signs that allegedly support Nguyen and District 8 San Jose council candidate Tam Truong — though the video quality isn’t clear enough to confirm. Rattled by the confrontation, the man being filmed gives the person filming him the phone number of who he said paid him to remove the signs.
San José Spotlight has called and texted the number, but has yet to receive a response.
Nguyen, a business-backed candidate, and Duong, a labor-backed candidate, have kept their campaigns positive. But some of their supporters come from opposing factions of a bitter political divide in Little Saigon marked by court battles, City Hall protests against a mayoral staffer, the targeted takedown of a community running club and political jockeying for control of San Jose’s Vietnamese Heritage Garden.
Doan — who had campaign signs stolen when he ran for office in 2022 and whose district covers much of San Jose’s unrivaled Vietnamese American population — maintains he’s not choosing a side in the supervisor race.
“However, I want to be very clear that this type of behavior, if true, is election interference — and such tactics show a blatant disregard for the law and undermine the voices of our community,” Doan told San José Spotlight.
Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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