I've been canvassing door-to-door almost every day for David Gill, our progressive Congressional candidate in IL-13 as well as for my friend who's running for Count Clerk on a platform of ending voter suppression. On most days pretty many swing voters are home and interested in talking. A few votes per hour seems like a typical yield.
Today went more slowly, few people answered the door. I got down to the last four addresses, about a half mile from the other batch and from the meet-up point. It wouldn't have seemed like a good way to spend the time, but the weather was nice and I need the exercise. The first three houses got no response, and may even have been wrong addresses. At the last one the woman on my list wasn't home. The door was answered by an older woman, probably her mother. I asked anyway if she was a registered voter, and she wasn't. She wanted to vote, especially because the Republicans were threatening Medicare and she is just trying to make it through another year with pre-existing conditions to get on it. But she had moved and thought it was too late to register. As it happens, there's a late registration/voting process here, at the Clerk's office walking distance from her house. (It's not a coincidence that we're doing that neighborhood now.)
She'll be walking over to register and vote tomorrow morning. She says the exercise will be good for her heart problems. Voting will be too.
It was worth getting to the last house.