It's officially election season once more! While it's obviously not a presidential election, it is still an election that is important. Some positions that you'd vote for include your state representatives, your state senator, and even more local positions like your Comptroller. I recently voted for those positions in Illinois and one thing really worried me, the lack of young people going out to vote.

While this has always been a problem in this country, specifically for midterm elections like this one, I believe that it is inexcusable. Voting is one of the things you can do to express your opinions. It is one of the most American things you can do besides drinking beer and eating deep fried donuts. The fact that young people sit at home and complain but do nothing to fix it is worrisome.

Voting among young people must increase if this country wants a chance.

I see hundreds of cases of people bitching on Facebook about how fucked up this country is, and how fucked up our political system is. The funny thing is, they are too lazy to vote! Here are the worst excuses I've come across:

"I don't know how to sign up so I'll just stay home," maybe you should take five minutes of your day to go learn how to sign up!

Or, "I'm too busy to vote" even though it takes five minutes to vote.

Or even, "My vote doesn't count so who cares if I go."

How many of you read that last comment and thought that was you. I can guarantee you that there are thousands of young people just like you that think your vote doesn't count, so you didn't go. That isn't just one vote, those are thousands of votes not counted because you were lazy. It is very easy to make excuses to not vote, but young people need to realize that it is important to speak your voice through elections.

To show you how lazy young Americans were in the 2016 election, let me throw some statistics your way. As reported by CIRCLE (The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement), "According to our initial, post-election estimate, approximately 50% of eligible young people—about 24 million youth, ages 18-29—voted in the 2016 general election."

If you look at that statistic and tell yourself that fifty percent is okay, let me pose a question to you. If you were given one of the most important tests of your lifetime, and you got a fifty percent, how great would you feel? Shitty is the word that comes to my mind.

The 2016 election was one of the biggest in recent memory because of the options we were given. We were given Hillary Clinton, a liar, and Donald Trump, a liar and a racist. While both options were horrible, the fact that only fifty percent of eligible young voters decided to vote is sickening.

Some people might say that fifty percent of young people is good. Well, according to CNN, "the 126 million votes already counted means about 55% of (eligible) voting age citizens cast their ballots this year". It is scary enough to see that only fifty-five percent of ALL Americans decided to vote, but it also shows us that the number of young people who voted was under the average. Fifty percent is not good enough people, we need to head to the polls and try to fix the political system.

It is beyond frustrating to have to write an article to convince my peers to go to the polls. It shouldn't even have to be something that we need to convince people to do. It should be an act that is obvious and compelling to do.

I am twenty-one years old and have voted in every election I could have.

I believe that I express my opinions through words and voting, so that one day I will make a difference. I just hope that the majority of young Americans will start to feel the way I do, and we can help clean up this messy political system. At the end of the day, we are all human, we are all American (if you're reading this in America), and we should all do our basic duty of voting.

You can register to vote here!