In the housing projects of Pittsburgh’s Northview Heights neighbourhood, vocal enthusiasm for this presidential election can be hard to come by.

I am out with two women, Leslie Hughes and Luwaunna Adams, whom I met two years ago when we were making a video in western Pennsylvania – a perennial battleground region in the US’s closest-fought swing state. The pair are members of the service workers’ union, which represents lower-income cleaners and security personnel. They are also two of the most effective and persuasive canvassers I have encountered.

As we trudge the streets, knocking doors in the crisp autumn air, we meet a number of apathetic voters who tell the women they are not planning to cast their ballot this time around. One young man named Rashad says he cannot understand how Hillary Clinton could win the popular vote in 2016 and yet lose the election. “If ‘we the people’ chose someone, but the electoral [system] chooses someone else, what’s the point of my vote?” he asks Adams. Another woman says she finds it impossible to discern “which one is good and which one is bad” – and so has decided to sit it out.

Their disengagement is understandable – and perhaps more widespread than we understand. Polls are starting to indicate that turnout may be significantly lower than four years ago. In the era of Donald Trump, laced with disinformation and pernicious politics, parsing fact from fiction is a laborious task for anyone. And an arcane electoral college is surely enough to make many grow disillusioned.

But Hughes and Adams do not give up. They stand for 10 minutes with each voter, running through many of the ways Trump failed during his first four years and why, they say, he should not be given another chance. They talk about how their rights as unionised cleaners are on the line. Adams engages in a frank lesson about the power of voting in her home state. “Your vote does count,” she says to Rashad. “You know what time it is.”

Both are eventually won over and decide to cast their vote for Harris. Adams lets out a cheer of joy. “When you start thinking for yourself, you realise what the best choice is for you,” she tells Rashad. He agrees: “Especially in this era of brainwash. Everything is just brainwashing you to think a certain way.” He thinks about taking a break from social media.

It is a moment of clarification and a reminder of just how distorted reality has become in........

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