Knock, knock, who knows there’s an election?

Greenwich selectman candidate Lauren Rabin recalls a canvassing experience that doubles as a Halloween and election ghost story.

“Guy answered the door with no shirt on. He looked a little ... gruesome. I asked if soandso was home and he looked at me dead serious and said ‘She is no longer of this Earth.’

“I was kind of like, ‘Did this just happen? Is she in the house somewhere?’ So I don’t go alone anymore.”

A year ago I quizzed candidates about campaigning door to door. They summoned funny encounters (U.S. Rep Jim Himes was greeted by a naked guy) and offered sage advice ( Jerry Bosak suggests bringing dog bones). This year’s class is as different as the ballots.

As Greenwich school board candidate Christina Downey says wryly, “You have to be able to put yourself out there and talk to strangers. All the things we tell kids we shouldn’t do — talk to strangers.”

Rabin is on the ticket with first selectman candidate Fred Camillo, who could teach a master class in canvassing. She’s also done this before as a Board of Education candidate, so she knows tricks come with treats. Still, shorthanding her mission last time was an EZPass compared to this year.

“I spend a lot of time explaining what a selectman is.”

“You have to actually do that?” I reply, as surprised as I am not surprised.

“Oh yes, a lot.”

“So you have to do a civics course on the front stoop?”

“They’ll say ‘What’s a selectman?’ and I’ll say, ‘It’s like the deputy mayor.’ They understand that. Then they’ll start talking about things we can’t control.”

So yes, there is a somewhat lessthaninformed electorate out there. It’s quiet, too quiet. It may be even worse in Stamford, where every candidate I spoke with had a common answer.

“The first message I’m trying to get out is that there is going to an election,” Stamford BOE candidate Jack Bryant says.

Civics lesson No. 2: There’s an election every November.

“It’s an invisible year,” says Mary Lou Rinaldi, who has been on Stamford’s finance board for 24 years. “It’s hardly the sexiest election. There is no president on the ticket. There is no governor. There is no mayor, no senator, no congressman. The Board of Finance is the top of the ticket. Hardly sexy.”

Several Republican candidates pointed to a lack of civility on the trail, as though they wear a scarlet letter “R” for being in the president’s party. Doors slammed in faces. “I’m not interested” barked from windows.

“A lot of Republicans are putting their heads down,” says Stamford Board of Education candidate Rebecca Hamman, who is a Republican. “They do not want to admit they are Republicans.”

David Kooris, an incumbent Stamford Board of Finance candidate, says it’s a challenge to engage voters about local issues, as many Democrats like to “vent a little” about the national scene to one of their own.

“So it’s like therapy?” I suggest.

“This year is more like doortodoor therapy,” he observes.

So he tries to follow a lesson he learned from a mentor, former Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch: “Potholes are not red or blue.”

Geoff Alswanger, who is on the ticket with Kooris, is hoping the national conversation could caffeinate a drowsy race.

“Most people I talk to are like, ‘There’s an election?’ ” he says, imitating residents tilting their head. “The next thing they say is even more concerning. They say (sotto voce), ‘Oh, you’re going to win.’ That’s exactly why I’m not going to win, because they’ll be like ‘I don’t need to get off the couch.’

“If anything good comes of the Trump era it is that it might energize people to get off the couch.”

Greenwich’s Democratic first selectman candidate, Jill Oberlander, offers a sobering assessment of how meeting people at their homes has shaped her vision of creating more places in town where residents can congregate.

“People are lonely,” she says. “People want to connect.”

Greenwich Board of Education incumbent candidate Gaetane Francis says she told Democratic party leaders she was drawing the line at door knocking this season, as she may be more overscheduled than a high school junior. Among other things, she is a medical doctor.

“It’s such a huge time ...” She can’t find the word to finish her thought about door knocking.

“Time suck” I write in my notebook.

Nevertheless, don’t expect the tradition to end even as candidates place more emphasis on social media. Fritz Blau, chairman of the Stamford Republican Town Committee, is coy about some applications he and Andrew Krill are road testing this weekend in their pursuit of finance board seats.

The apps look pretty cool, but Blau keeps them close to the vest in case they aren’t ready for prime time.

“I would love to take a seat on the Board of Finance, that would be the ultimate goal,” Blau says. “But a close second is reestablishing (the Stamford GOP’s) bona fides to be able to go out and campaign.”

In other words, prime time is next November.