Tuesday, June 7 was California Primary Day and also my first time voting ever.

I walked into my high school's auditorium, feeling it was ironic this would be the first place I'd ever vote. High school was where I actually began to acknowledge and understand politics; it's where I learned how the right to vote came to be.

I walked up to the check-in table, showed my ID, and was handed a nonpartisan Democratic ballot. At one time voting for Homecoming King or Prom Queen seemed extremely important, but holding these two pieces of cardstock showed me the bigger picture: the power and voice I truly have within my community. Never in my life have I felt more influential than in that moment.

Four years ago, I was a freshman in college who was too young to vote in the 2012 Presidential Election. I remember having candid discussions with my hall mates about who to vote for and why. (Of course, I was hoping for Obama.) I recall feeling like I did my civic duty by telling others, who were a mere few months older than me, why it was important for them to vote.

Little did I know then that actually having the ability to vote and exercising that right is an even greater feeling.

As I have been reading the myriad of Facebook posts, tweets, and news articles about the election, I realized that each person and each post is a voice striving to be heard, same with each vote. Our government and electoral system may be flawed, and it may seem like one person's ballot cannot make a difference. However, collectively we do have the ability to produce change. Voting is an inalienable right of every United States citizen, 18 years or older. (Obvi.)

Those that abstain from voting, because they feel their vote does not matter or have the attitude that "everyone else will do it for me," are careless. These people are disrespecting those who fought to give us the right to even have a choice.

A common trend I've noticed amongst millennials, people my age, is that they refrain from voting, because they feel uninformed. Well I have two words for you: get informed.

Get informed and exercise your right to vote. You will wallow in the amazing feeling that you actually did something positive for the greater good of your community; trust me.