As we are rapidly nearing the election, it is more important now than ever to be informed about the decision you plan on making. Some seem to go into the polls, thinking it is no big deal and they can just vote for whatever name sounds good to them. But what people do not understand, especially this election year, our country is going to change immensely.

Sure, your vote is small in the big scale of things and you might not think your single vote matters, but the problem arises because thousands of people think the same thing. The more people with that mindset, the more it adds up and the less diversity we have going into the polls. So are our elections truly representative of our whole population?

According to pewresearch.org, in the presidential primaries, only 28.5 percent of Americans voted. With less than half of the population showing up and voting for our republican and democratic nominees, how are we truly supposed to get a candidate who is representative of us as a whole? It is truly impossible.

According to the NY Times, only 9 percent of the population voted for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton while the rest of the votes were scattered among the other nominees. Based off of a statistic like that, the general election votes will most likely be low this year, even though this is probably one of the most important election years for our country.

We have so much at stake, and two candidates who are complete polar opposites on every issue discussed and honestly, neither of them are trustworthy. It is so important, especially now, that people go out and vote next week. Soon, let’s hope, life goes back to normal and we can scroll through Facebook and turn on the news without seeing some sort of controversy or scandal.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer and are not representative of The Slate or its staff as a whole

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