I was having an in-depth conversation with a friend about the upcoming election when he said it didn't matter what he thought because he wasn't going to vote anyway. My response: WTF. Why would you ignore our freedom like that? Well, our conversation went like this...

"How am I supposed to vote for our next president if I strongly dislike every candidate?"

This may be true. But then I thought: even if you don't trust any of the candidates, there has to be someone's views that you agree with more than the others. Not voting for something so important is like watching a child get candy taken from him and looking the other way.

"It's like picking which candidate is going to stab you in the back the least; choosing the lesser of two evils."

Voting is still an important way for you to voice your opinion about the subjects you care about most. You don't have to like the candidate as a person; judge them based on their roles as politicians. For example, I'm sure that we have all had professors that we strongly dislike as people but who were great teachers and took pride in their job.

"The candidates are all big, fat liars."

I understand that many people can get annoyed, especially now, with the constant bickering between candidates. But if the wrong person gets to live in the White House next year, you should not be allowed to complain about the mistakes they make for our country if you didn't vote. I also understand that it's hard to have faith in people who publicly fight with each other more often than we would like; but behind the bickering, the candidates have made it this far for a reason. They all have unique ideas of how to improve our country and they all have important things to say. Just take the time to listen and find what you agree with. The rest is easy: register and vote!

"It's not going to matter if I don't vote. I'm only one person."

That is just such an ignorant thing to say. If everyone had that mindset then we wouldn't have a government. Exercise your right to vote. Hundreds of years ago, thousands of men didn't fight and die for nothing; they risked their lives for our freedom and we have been given such unique opportunities and grown as an amazing country since then. Why would you take that for granted?

It really just blew my mind that a young, educated student who has very opinionated views on ways to improve our government, policies that should and shouldn't be implemented, and overall ideas on how our country should be run is choosing to ignore the most important part of the process. We live in a free country. We have the freedom to choose who runs our country and looking past such an amazing right is one of the worst mistakes a person can make. This goes for all citizens, not just millennials. Exercise your rights and vote this fall!