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Right. I note that they don't ask the man who he's going to vote for - they ask whether he's going to vote. They ask him if he "has a plan" to vote (which sounds weird to me, because you shouldn't need a plan beyond "rock up to a polling place", but maybe it's playing on ideas about voter suppression?). It's turning out the base, not persuading unsure voters.
It is because when you ask someone about how they plan to vote, it takes them from an abstract vague thought of voting as "I like candidate John and hope he wins" into thinking concretely of how they will commit the physical act of voting. Without that step a lot of people won't actually go vote. I've seen races decided by literally one family going to the polls instead of staying home.
Do they know the correct date? Will they have time to go before work? After? Need to request time off? Be out of town at their cousin's wedding and need to early vote or vote by mail? Where is the voting booth anyway? Can they walk or drive themselves to the polls or will they need a ride?
Imagine if you and a bunch of your boys were like "You know what? We should all go to Yellowstone." If one of you looks at the best month to visit Yellowstone, starts pushing everyone to see if they can take off work during that month, finds some hotels, plans how you will get there, makes sure everybody is saving up and puts their vacation request in, etc it will probably actually happen. Otherwise "we should all go to Yellowstone" is going to just be an idle notion rattling in skulls for decades that never happens.
t. veteran campaigner
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If the ad is actually targeted at men, maybe the "has a plan to vote" verbiage is to make it sound meaningful, agentic, and even heroic. You make a plan to found a business, or win a war, or build a home. If you just say "are you going to vote," it makes it sound like all you are doing is filling in a bubble on a sheet that has approximately zero chance of changing anything.
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You need a plan to vote if you're an hourly worker who needs to put in for time off in order to get to a polling place at a time when you can vote. Or wake up early. Or go immediately to get in line after you get off work.
That makes sense in the US context - I'm Australian, so here voting is always on Saturday and legally compulsory, so if you work on Saturday, it is very likely that your workplace will make arrangements for everybody to go and vote. Or failing that, early voting is relatively easy here. I understand that voting is usually more of a hassle in America?
Varies wildly depending on where you live.
But the biggest thing in my mind is just that if you're not THAT attached to the idea you just might not get to it. Sleep in so you don't get to it first thing before work, didn't ask off work so you can't go until after, uh oh I have to go to the bank/mechanic/whatever. For some portion of people it might slip through the cracks.
Keep in mind that as of last week 800,000 ballots were already cast in PA. We're watching the strategy in the 8th inning of a baseball game in which neither we as the audience nor the players or the managers know the score or what happened in the earlier innings.
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Well voting always happens on weekdays in America for one. Polling places usually stay open until around 8pm, but that still might be cutting it close depending on your work schedule, and unless you're a white collar professional you might have difficulty getting time off from work to go vote. In terms of actual physical access to polling places, most people will have at least one relatively close by, but some people might have to travel longer.
Or you can just do a mail-in.
There's no set closing time, even based on state?
Here, for instance, polls always close at 6 PM, in every state. I believe if you are in the line (the website says "still in the polling place", but since the place may be outside or split between several buildings, e.g. at a school, it is usually interpreted to mean anybody who's present and wishes to vote) at 6 PM they will stay open just long enough to empty the line, but no more will be admitted. In my experience (having worked as a polling official), it is extremely rare for that to matter, and usually at 6 PM there is nobody around any more.
Thus my usual experience of voting, when I'm not working at the polls, is to stroll down the road on Saturday and usually I can be in and out in five minutes.
I believe within a state there’s one set closing time, but different states can have different closing times.
We also have the rule here that if you’re in line before the closing time, they won’t kick you out.
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Depends on your state--it's all very decentralized in the US. I received an absentee ballot, and the only real difficult part was getting through the annoyance at having to vote for over a dozen different offices and two dozen different propositions.
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