This article is being written on voting day, November 6th. I personally voted on the first day of early voting, but voting on election day is not by any means less significant than early voting. I hope all of you voted!

Many disillusioned young adults are unfortunately under the impression that voting affects nothing in our government because all political party activity is, at a basic level, selfish and money hungry. This to a certain extent can be considered true, but please understand: not all politicians are bad people, nor are all politicians only looking out for themselves. There are many wonderful and great things about both major political parties; the Democratic Party focuses on the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, the working class, healthcare, and aid to immigrants seeking asylum, whereas the Republican Party focuses on religion's relationship to the Constitution, the trade market, traditional family values, and national security.

Both political parties believe they have the best solutions to making the United States a safer and better place to live for those who reside here. While they have different approaches to doing so, each party has values which they genuinely will help others and they should be admired at a basic line for those reasons. Now to the important part: if you do not agree with the platform of a party or even of your own party, YOU have the opportunity to change said platform by electing members of your party to office with whom you most closely relate to ideologically. In addition, you are also able to dictate what happens within Congress from a (unfortunately) limited scope because the senators and representatives you elect have an obligation to represent the people that vote them into office. If they fail to correctly and accurately represent the people their own constituents, they run the risk of not being reelected.

The future of law, legislation, and human rights lie in your hands through the form of a ballot, and by not voting, you as an American citizen are failing to equip the government with good officials that represent you. If you elect good people into the office that directly affects you, you will have no complaints of "lousy" or "corrupt" politicians from pushing through legislation that goes against the best interest of the citizens of the United States.

If you have not registered to vote, elections will be held again in 2020. Register to vote here.