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I am on the one hand happy to hear about this, but I couldn't help but laugh at the way it was reported on NPR. They said Democrats see this as an issue that can bring voters to the polls. I immediately thought of how few people even know what the heck net neutrality is (about 1 in 4 [0]). Either NPR is making stuff up or the Democrats are seriously in need of some new advice. [0]:https://americanactionnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02....


1 in 4? That is insanely high. I would be surprised in 1 in 10 can explain what NN is properly (not "evil ISPs are gonna to make us pay for pr0n!") and about 1 in a 100 to explain what actually happened in 2015 and what happened in 2018 and what is the state of current legislation around ISP-content provider relationships. These things are complex patchwork of years of legislation and require non-trivial knowledge to understand. I rate the chance of 1 in 4 of Americans having this knowledge as the chance 1 in 4 Americans can fluently speak ancient Sumerian.


They don't need to understand in order to vote.


Young people are less likely to vote but far, far more likely to know about Net Neutrality. I think it's a shrewd strategy: it will get more young people out, who tend to vote Democrat.


I think actual concern is vastly overstated. The number of people truly willing to vote over net neutrality despite virtually none of the post-apocalyptic claims made last time around coming true has got to be borderline non-existent.

If someone's ISP starts blocking / heavily throttling Netflix or YouTube for them, I could see it becoming a voting issue. But otherwise? Meh.


Base enthusiasm matters a lot, since it drives turnout.

And the only thing that matters in elections in the US is turnout and undecideds (of whom there are very few).


Do you know how it breaks down by age group? It could help drive younger voter turnout at the midterms, which is traditionally impossible.




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