ELKHART — A political billboard targeting President Obama that sparked controversy earlier this year is no longer visible.

A tea party group, We the People of Marshall and Fulton Counties, had paid for the billboard off Nappanee Street where it curves into Bristol Street. It read “The Navy SEALs removed one threat to America... The voters must remove the other.” It went up in August, sparking protests, and had remained there through the Nov. 6 election.

Sometime this week or late last week, though, the message canvas was turned around, leaving just a blank black rectangle. With election season over, a rep from the advertising company that manages the billboard had said a week after the Nov. 6 vote that the message would be turned around.

Critcs saw the billboard as a lob against Obama and criticized it for inappropriately equating the president with Al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden, killed by Navy SEALs. Don Nunemaker of Plymouth, head of We the People, had initially described the billboard only as a call to vote but after the vote he indicated it was directed at Obama.

The “threat” referenced in the message hasn’t gone away, Nunemaker said after the vote, and until Obama’s new term ends “we’re going to face a lot of difficulty.”