I’ve never liked elections. Mostly it’s out of sympathy for my father, a political journalist, who I’ve seen work the full twenty four hours on election day without sleep (the last race for governor in Minnesota was especially brutal for him), but there's also the non stop political ad that are less about policy and more about get at the other candidates throats, annoying calls from people halfway across the country who seem to have no respect for your schedule and when it's convenient/ ok to get a random call, and the overall neighbor vs. neighbor mentality that rises to the surface during these times. It has to be said, elections are just plain unpleasant, but they're a necessary inconvenience for the sake of our right to call ourselves not only a democracy, but a free nation, something we pride ourselves on immensely.

This election has especially been brutal for the American voter. I don’t think there's a single person out there who would argue that our choices for president this time around more or less suck. Actually the names we have on the ballot are straight up embarrassing. As someone with a lot of friends from different countries I find a lot of my arguments with them ending in statements like “you’re about to elect (insert candidate name)” and frankly it’s something I find hard to argue with accept to explain that whoever gets voted in has to first be accepted by the electoral college before taking office, which, in this election especially, might not happen. But outside the issue of being the international laughing stock there are people within our own country who refuse to vote on the grounds that they don’t like any of the candidates.

People, that’s not an excuse. There are five candidates on the ballot this year, all of whom have different enough views that you can find one who you agree with more than the others, and if you truly can’t you can always write in Any way around it ends with you being able to make your opinion known, even if you write in Mickey Mouse it's a statement about your political views that is in fact important.

Our country was created on the basis of people's freedom to choose. Back when we were the colonies of Britain a large part of our discontent that lead us down the road to revolution was based i the fact that our “representatives” in parliament weren't’ actually representing us. Not only were they not chosen by the colonists, they weren’t from the colonies and didn’t appear to have our best interests at heart. Once we were our own independent nation we vowed as a country never to let anyone use us like that again and dedicated the very first article of the constitution to how representation of the people will take place in a foolproof way that guarantees that we’re actually being represented. Our founding fathers put in a lot of effort to thinking up this system which so far had kept us going for 200 year to guarantee that their children, and their children’s children, and in fact every person to live in this country after them, would have the opportunity they didn’t have under the British government. It would be an insult to their hard work, their legacy, and an insult to our own freedom not to take the opportunity we’ve been given to choose our leaders.

Many people around the world have lost limb and life for the opportunity we have here in America, some of these people are themselves American. Native Americans, African Americans, Women have all in our nation's past had to fight for their right to vote. Voting you have to understand is the ultimate expression of freedom, and a person does not believe themselves truly free until they have that right. Here in America however that right is one of the most basic ones we have and because of that many people have forgotten how important it is. It like the saying “you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.” To us it’s a basic human right to be able to vote so we forget that so many people worldwide don’t have that right, and forget to take advantage of it. We are the greatest nation in the world, the model all other modern democracies have built their own governments off of. If we want to remain the world power that we are we need to act it, express our freedoms, and go to the polls.

I’ve heard the argument that people aren’t going to the polls because they refuse to vote for Trump or Clinton and know that the third party candidates have about as much a chance of winning as a snowball does in hell. Ok, it’s true, In our countries two hundred year history of political parties a third party candidate has never won a presidential election. No third party candidate has even come close, And trust me the candidates know this as much as anyone else. But they, and the few people who do vote for them know something else to. You might be screwed before your start, but that’s no reason not to. Running or voting third party is not about winning. It’s about making the statement. The election isn’t about who you think will win, it’s about who you want to win, even if they don’t have a chance, because they’re representing you, and their showing what you represent, which is entirely what the elections is about. You and your idea’s, and what you think is right. Majority might rule this country, but we can’t have a majority without a majority of the people going to the polls.

Elections are scary annoying and tiresome, but they are the most important right we have as Americans. Our right to vote is our basis for power, our bragging right, and our show of freedom. No matter who you vote for your vote counts because you showed your opinion. The one thing our country was created to do, and that’s why we the people or the United States of America, should be at the polls living our freedom, exercising our right, and keeping my dad up until all hours of the morning.