If the clerk is competent they can probably do advance plays for specific days, within a limited range. Based on my limited experience I'm assuming what's allowed varies by game and by state.
My actual experience is knowing that in PA you can play advanced draws for MM while skipping the first/next drawing (buy on Tuesday but play Friday and the following Tuesday for example) but you can't skip the first/next drawing when buying advance plays for PB. Or maybe it's the other way around. I just know that I once bought several advance plays when I already had a ticket good through the first drawing after the time at which I was buying the new ticket.
Of course you might also get a clerk who only thinks they know what they're doing while printing a bunch of tickets that aren't what you asked for. That won't matter for P3 or P4 (unless you happen to run up against the maximum sales for a given number) because the prizes aren't parimutuel. For games with parimutuel prizes printing incorrect tickets will effectively reduce the jackpot if you don't take the mistakes. I recently wanted a number of advance plays that can't b chosen on the play slip and before I could stop him the incompetent clerk I'd been saddled with printed 3 tickets for a single draw with the numbers I'd been planning on using.
