word check

Free idea to steal for anyone who wants to make themselves slightly more famous:

WWE is going to pound the SmackDown Your Vote campaign hard over the next few months, telling the fans to register* and to go out and vote. Question is – how many of them have actually done just that, and voted in previous elections?

It’s typical for front people in Get Out Of The Vote campaigns to not have been dedicated voting in the past. The WWE lifestyle doesn’t really lend it self to being near a voting booth on Election Day (they were in Dallas in ’00) and getting an absentee ballot isn’t always the easiest thing to do or even a high priority. As a person who has never voted themselves, I wouldn’t fault them for that, but just find it iffy if they’re part of the campaign telling people to vote if they’re not doing it themselves.

I think there’s a story here, it doesn’t require much thinking, and it works either way – it’d just be as interesting to find out wrestlers are that politically savvy, but it’d require quite a bit of legwork: track down real names and real locations and getting in touch with the various state voting boards (they’re allowed to say if someone did get a ballot, though that may depend on the state – smoking gun’s done these sort of pieces before, so they might be a good place to ask) and check to see if the guys telling you about 573 people making a choice made a choice themselves.

Of course, you just might get people annoyed at you and it’s not as easy as reposting things about WWE Dress Policy (omg did Rock have to wear a sensible shirt and slacks? I guess not Austin since he wasn’t working) but you could be a real reporter.

Me? Not a reporter. Not making phone calls.

* note to self: remember to send that in