Reminders

• Pay attention to the participants' responses - sometimes you will need to quickly move to the next question to maintain the flow of the interview, and sometimes you can ask a question that is not on this protocol that can lead you to more interesting information.
• Expanding on the previous point, if someone starts to talk a lot about something, let them talk and perhaps get them to expand on that point, as it could unearth further areas of study

Intro

<aside> 💡 If possible, make small talk with the participant first. It helps them get more comfortable before diving into questions.

</aside>

In this interview, you will be asked a series of questions related to your experience voting in U.S. elections. Some will be simple, and others may require you to recall past experiences or describe your relationships with different people. Please answer each question to the best of your ability. If any of the questions provoke a seemingly unrelated idea, feel free to share it with me - all of your experiences are valuable.

Warm-Up Questions

Before we dive in to the main questions, we're going to talk about a few fun ones to get to know each other a little better.

• What is your profession?
• What kinds of activities have you been engaging in to stave off quarantine boredom?
• Have you read any good books lately?

And pretty much any other question you can think of. This part could be very participant-dependent.

Main Questions

We are going to start off the interview by asking several questions regarding your voting habits.

1. Have you ever voted in an election in the U.S.?
   • Y
   • N
2. Have you ever voted in a local/municipal government election?
   • Y
   • N
3. Take a moment to think about your main groups of friends in [college/the last few years]. {Give the participant a moment to think.}
   1. Are any of your friends particularly politically active/vocal?
      • Y
      • N
   2. Are any members of your family politically active/vocal?
      • Y
      • N
   3. Do you use social media?
      • Y
      • N
   4. On average, which social media platforms do you use the most?
      • Do any of your friends share political or voting-related content on any of these platforms?
      • How is this information shared? {probably platform dependent}
      • How effective do you think social media is at getting your peers to vote?
4. [For college students] Can you describe the role politics plays at your university?
   1. Does being a student present any unique challenges to casting your vote?
   2. Does being a student present any unique challenges to getting voting information or political information?
   3. Do you believe that your political beliefs have been influenced by your university climate? Why or why not?
5. Think for a moment about your voting bloc. {tell them that, for example, their bloc could be their age demographic, political beliefs, economic beliefs, etc.} Do you feel connected to your bloc? Do you feel that you share the same beliefs as the majority?
6. Do you think that your vote matters? remove this one
   • Y
   • N