While many people were happy about the results of the recent election, many people were upset. If you involved yourself in politics this year, congratulations! You have served our democracy, and you have been a part of improving it. If you did not involve yourself, you need to.

Forty percent of eligible voters did not vote in the most recent election. Not only are people robbing themselves of their own political power, however small that individual power may be, but they are also indirectly causing the president to not be fully representative of the country.

It is understandable that many people feel that their vote does not count. One person’s vote was .0000007 percent of all votes for president cast in 2016, a minuscule amount. Additionally, if more people were to exercise their right to vote, one vote would have even less of an impact.

As powerless as you may feel, as small as your vote may be, votes do matter. Votes are how presidents and local officials are chosen. Presidents can change the world, for better or for worse, but local elections are what decide which officials make the decisions that most directly impact your life. Even if you feel that you do not have very much political power in the current system of super political action committees and big donors, votes are the only political power that we have. I believe that if you want to have any impact whatsoever on our political system, you must exercise your sacred right to vote.

One of the things that is almost always overlooked in politics are the midterm and local elections. In reality, these are the types of elections that impact our lives the most, yet people seem to pay the least amount of attention to them, especially state and local elections. With their smaller constituencies, one vote in these elections can matter a lot more.
For example, in 2004, the gubernatorial race in Washington State was decided by 133 votes, or just 0.00473 percent of the votes cast. A 2008 Senate race in Minnesota was decided by 312 votes, or 0.0108 percent of the votes cast. These are statewide elections, and local or Congressional elections can be even closer. Midterms are elections just the same as presidential ones, just without the long, drawn-out fight for publicity.

Recently, I completed a project about Ancient Greek government. We learned that, according to Pericles, the Athenian leader, participation in Athenian democracy was the main benefit one could reap from it. The United States is also a democracy, so the lessons learned from Athens can be applied to our system of government as well. Applying this to our government allows us to recognize that not only is participation in democracy essential to its functioning as a good system of government, thereby improving the nation, but also to the benefit of its people.

Regardless of your political beliefs or party affiliations, voting serves to benefit you and this illustrious country of ours. I am begging you get involved in politics so that you know what you are doing when you become an adult. Involving yourself in politics contributes to the improvement of the democracy that you are involving yourself in. Make sure those in your family vote regardless of their political affiliations so that our democracy may serve the needs of its people in the best way possible. When you become an adult, please exercise your right to vote.