A case of political dirty tricks that flared over the weekend in the Republican stronghold of Blair County left Democrats sputtering and the local GOP wondering what the big deal was.

Logan Township police Sunday charged a McCain volunteer with one count of receiving stolen property after they said he admitted to plucking 40 Obama signs from the ground in public places and shoving them into the back of his sport utility vehicle.

The county GOP disavowed any involvement in the disappearance of the Obama signs and claimed that hundreds of McCain signs have vanished without explanation.

"It's a cost of doing business -- something you don't like, but you expect it," said A.C. Stickel IV, Blair County Republican chairman.

Monkey business like that in Logan is not an exception, but rather the rule in political campaigns. Shenanigans and politics seem to go together.

"I don't think we've ever been through an election where we don't get complaints of that sort. It just routinely happens," said Laughlin McDonald, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Voter Rights Project in Atlanta.

"We have our wonderful sides. We also have our dark and shady sides as well," Mr. McDonald said in attempting to explain why people are not content simply to cast votes for their candidate but feel they must go the extra illicit mile.

"They're human beings and they want to protect their own interests, and they want to be the ones in power and they will do most anything they can to ensure they get in power and they stay in power," he said.

In recent weeks, Philadelphians have complained about fliers warning that voters could be arrested at the polls for unpaid parking tickets. Some Virginians were targeted by fliers wrongly advising Democrats to vote tomorrow. In Nevada, Latino voters said they were called by people identifying themselves as Obama volunteers who pressed them to vote over the phone.

"We see this every year," Jonah Goldman of the advocacy group Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law told The Associated Press. "It all happens around this time, when there's too much other stuff going on in the campaigns, and it doesn't get investigated."

But that was not the case in Logan, which surrounds Altoona -- "We're the doughnut, they're the hole," Logan police Chief Ron Heller said. There, the investigation was swift.

Chief Heller's officers fielded the complaint Sunday evening after Democratic committeeman Randy Aurandt, 53, of Williamsburg, peered into an SUV in the GOP headquarters parking lot in Logan and spotted a mother lode of Obama campaign signs.

Mr. Aurandt had been alerted to the SUV and missing signs earlier in the day by Democratic Committee Chairman Frank Rosenhoover, 72, of Altoona.

Mr. Rosenhoover said he was driving to church when he saw someone uprooting an Obama sign from the side of the road and heading with it to an SUV sporting a McCain sticker.

"We've been having signs stolen all over this county. We've lost over 200 signs in the two months due to thievery," he said. "We've been very sensitive about this."

Mr. Aurandt and his wife, Robin, met with Mr. Rosenhoover that afternoon to discuss the sign situation. They took a spin past McCain headquarters in Logan and saw an SUV that matched the description given earlier by Mr. Rosenhoover. Mr. Aurandt looked inside.

"I was ecstatic. It was good to catch somebody, like finding a needle in a haystack," he said.

The Chevy Suburban belonged to Michael G. Jennings, 39, of Duncansville.

Mr. Jennings could not be reached for comment. But he told officers he removed the signs "in an attempt to prove a point to the Democratic Party for them stealing McCain-Palin election signs," according to a police affidavit.

"I think it's stupid and it's arrogant," said Mr. Rosenhoover, who was more than happy to discuss the matter.

"I am so shocked that this is a story," said Mr. Stickel, 46.

"I have never seen a campaign where there weren't some overzealous campaign volunteers who didn't steal each other's signs.

"It is not right. It is not acceptable. But if we thought it were an issue then we would have called a press conference Saturday morning when we discovered that probably in the neighborhood of 300 to 400 signs of ours were taken from private property," he said.

Mr. Jennings told police he planned to return the signs. And besides, Mr. Stickel said, the signs should not have been on Pennsylvania Department of Transportation rights of way in the first place, so Mr. Jennings was really doing everyone a favor.

"It's kind of like picking up trash," Mr. Stickel said.

Police charged Mr. Jennings by summons. Now it will be up to District Attorney Richard Consiglio, a Republican, to decide whether to prosecute.

Asked when he plans to make up his mind, he answered, "Not until I have to."