Unless you have been living under a rock for a while, you have probably heard a lot about the 2016 general election. It was a general election, not just a presidential election. That is the first problem. A lot of people only thought about the presidential race and there was no thought given to local elections.
Local and state elections are just as important as national elections, and as the future of this country, we as college students need to consider the people who will have an affect on how things are run in more than just the White House.
Another problem with this election was the voter turnout.
I don’t care if you voted for Trump or Clinton or a third party candidate. If you voted, you did something right. It’s the eligible voters that abstained that are the problem.
I know of people who chose to stay home on Election Day, for various reasons like, not feeling like they would be affected by the results of the election. Another reason I heard was that some thought that they weren’t educated enough.
Quite frankly, those reasons are crap.
For one, if you live in the United States, you are definitely going to be affected by the results of an election. You will have to live with the results knowing that you gave up your chance to have a voice. If your reasoning was not being educated enough, you could have used the Internet. Websites such as ISideWith and OnTheIssues can help you figure out what you stand for and what the various candidates stand for.
This voter apathy, and the feeling of not having a voice, is what, according to FairVote.org, for the fifth time in the United States history, elected a President by way of the electoral college rather than by popular vote. Two of those times have happened in our lifetimes. That’s why every vote counts, even if it does not seem like it.
In order to avoid this problem in the future, we all have to use our resources to make sure we are registered to vote, to learn about the candidates and the issues and to actually show up to vote. Don’t wait until a few months before the next presidential election.
Start early. Get registered now so that you don’t miss a deadline. You don’t even have to go anywhere because you can register online.
As soon as a candidate announces they are running for office, be it for president or for mayor, do your research. Learn about their stance so that you can make an educated decision. Our generation is the future of this country and we can’t just sit around expecting everything to be fine. We have to make sure that we fight to elect the people best fit to help run this country. No reason is a good reason to not vote.