November 6 is an election day, which is basically impossible to forget due to the fact that every other tv, radio, internet video, and Spotify commercial has been a political commercial. Not to mention the fact that every square inch of Grand Forks has some form of political advertisement whether it’s a yard sign or a billboard.

Now is the time where I am going to implore everyone to vote. This is not a political article despite the start and where the feeling of this article is taking you. I am not going to tell anyone how to vote or who to vote for, but I am demanding of everyone that you do vote. The right to vote is definitely something that a large portion of our generation takes for granted. It was April of 2012 and I turned 18 and at the time I was actually living in Canada, but I knew that in November I would get to vote in a presidential election. I requested an absentee ballot and it was very exciting getting to do that for the first time. Since that time I have always taken my right to vote very seriously, and it is disappointing to see the people in our generation not have the same sort of care for the right to vote.

I know we all get political burnout by the time the election rolls around and I partly believe that’s what both parties want. I believe that some of the more radical people in politics would rather not have your voice heard because they don’t want the public to know that we actually hold all the cards when it comes to power. Now, it is very easy to fall into the trap that big money is actually what controls everything, and that real life politics is more like an episode of House of Cards than it is the constitutional republic that the founding fathers built. You don’t have to look far to find somebody who will tell you why your vote doesn’t matter, and that in all actuality there’s really no point in voting because it doesn’t matter anyways. Truthfully there has been enough people that have said and believed that their vote doesn’t matter that now a large portion don’t vote because of what has filled their mind. The facts are that your vote does matter and your vote is the way you vote. In fact if you think about it, you vote every day whenever you spend money. When you spend your money on a product you are showing that brand and business that you endorse this product and you will pay a certain amount of money for it.

Nov. 6 is the day that you get to make your voice heard that will affect decisions for years to come. It doesn’t matter who you vote for, it matters that you vote. There are still countries in the world today where people don’t have the right to vote, we’re so spoiled in the United States that we forget that and we feel annoyed by the fact that people expect us to know some of the issues and make a half informed decision. So, on Tuesday Nov 6. do a little bit of research and find a candidate that lines up the most closely with your beliefs and cast your vote.