I don't think the people have a vote on going to war or not. It's not, and never has been a people's choice.
Yes it is.
People will elect pro-war candidates out of office.
To convince people that war is needed, you use fearmongering. let's look at past wars-
WWII - Pearl harbor was allwoed to happen to get US population support. We were STRONG isolational belief population. People wanted no part of that mess.
Vietnam - We staged the gulf of tonkien attack to justify war. 2005 declassified documents show "a slight misunderstanding in middle management caused erroneous report of who actually shot first". You don't go to war for a decade over "small middle mgmt errors"
Egypt 1967 - We had Israel shoot the shit out of one of our boats to try to sink it, the USS Liberty. When it didn't sink and the russians showed up to videotape, the attack ended. men were gagged. But LBJ's transcript calling off assistance, saying "I want that boat at the bottom of the g*ddamn sea" is pretty convincing.
Fake attacks are used to piss people off, or scare them, so that they'll vote for TOUGH politicians (those who want war). however, with all the election rigging we'll see in 2 days, it's a moot point now.