“I’m making plans to call all my friends across the country in the days after the election. Just to check in and see how they all are doing. It’s going to be a stressful time, and I will just need to reconnect with good people.”

We’re riding with Philip as he drives us to the rural edge of Atlanta’s Fulton County. With a gap in his diary today (between the school drop-off and picking up his parents from the airport), he’s lacing up his shoes and dealing with his election anxiety by getting out and doing something.

If you didn’t know better, you could kid yourself that there was nothing much to worry about. It doesn’t take long though to clock that everything is on edge. It’s an inescapable feeling that, whatever happens, nothing will be the same after next Tuesday.

We arrive early at the Democrats HQ where volunteers are coordinating the get-out-the-vote effort in this corner of Atlanta. A cohort of college-aged kids and their older Gen X pals are busying themselves by getting the canvassing operation running: it’s all trestle tables, clipboards, campaign material, debriefs, voter packs and nervous energy. 

The energy is markedly different on the street. Dana is a college student, and she’s been poring over the data flowing in from the door-knock drive. When it comes to young voters, it seems this whole election is a bust.

“Only 9% of 19- to 29-year-olds have already voted. For those 29-39, it’s only 11%. Those numbers are scary,” she tells us.

Young Atlantans are ghosting this election. After decades of systemic failure in Washington, the growing gap between the superrich and the great unwashed, climate catastrophe battering the country regularly, and the sideshow spectacle of this campaign, it’s easy to see why.

Still, there’s a fight to be fought, and getting out the vote is a massive, complex and relentless operation. The detail available to the campaign is granular — right down to who might need a lift to the polls on the day. This requires vast amounts of time, money and boots on the ground. It’s also an open gate for the negative politics of voter suppression where discouraging votes is the aim for some.

In Georgia, a hostile Republican state government has turned voter suppression into a dark art, passing detailed and restrictive laws, such as those prohibiting anyone providing water or food to people waiting in line to vote, or party volunteers coming within 150 yards of a polling booth. Where some communities — I’ll let you guess which — face long wait times to cast a ballot, it all screams: we don’t want you to vote, and if you do, we’re punishing you for it.

ABC News reports that 20% of American polling places have closed over the past decade. That’s an estimated 27,000 polling places closed between 2010 and 2022. Most of those are in remote, poor counties across America. Research shows that when the distance to your polling place increases by more than half a mile, the vote drops by 5%.

We’re designated a section of South Fulton County. It’s solid Democrat territory, but nothing is left to chance. Every vote is precious, and a conversation with a likely voter is deemed the best way to ensure their vote is delivered to Kamala Harris. We have one mission: walk away from every door making sure whoever lives there is one step closer to getting to the polls.

While we’re weaving through traffic, I tell Philip that Australia has compulsory voting and that “getting out the vote” is not a problem. He shoots me a look of incredulity.

“I’d never heard of that before! That would never work here.”

We do the rounds of a modest, house-proud Black neighbourhood set on the edge of a picturesque autumnal forest, its trees shedding their red and yellow leaves like confetti. The message from the campaign is direct and simple. Meet people where they are, and above all, listen. The art of inviting a voter to express their aspiration, fears, confusion, anger or hope is the missing piece for so many who feel alienated and ignored. It’s about putting undecided voters on a path to the polls. And it works.

Most folks don’t answer the door, instead speaking only via their video security systems, telling us they’ve voted already and that they voted for Harris.

Vicki, a middle-aged Black woman with a beaming smile, does answer the door.

“I voted as early as I could, and I voted for Kamala,” she tells us.