1. Your vote = your voice.

This sounds cliche, and you probably hear it from everyone, but it's true. Your vote is literally your voice. You have the opportunity to make a difference in your country and elect politicians that you like, but you can't exercise this without voting.

You might think that your vote, a single vote, won't impact the election overall. You might think that it's obvious which candidate will win so there's no point in you voting anyway. Whatever you're doing to convince yourself that your vote doesn't matter, stop it right now.

Imagine if everyone single citizen of the U.S. thought their vote didn't matter. Imagine if 50% of citizens decided they wouldn't vote because their ballot wouldn't change anything. That's a huge difference, isn't it?

Voting gives you the wonderful opportunity to use our democratic system and play a part in who wins political office in this country. What better way to use your voice and make your choice!

2. Not voting is like watching your friends fight and doing nothing about it.

This might be a little dramatic. Actually, it's not. Not voting is really like standing by while your friends get in a huge argument and just watching. To be honest, it's more like watching a car accident, especially in the case of the 2016 presidential election.

The point I'm trying to make is that not voting is pretty much to most passive thing you can do during an election. Not voting shows that you just don't care about the outcome of this country, whether that's good or bad. If you go through the trouble to watch the news, listen to political debates, or read about politics, than you might as well do it. You're pretty much standing by while to friends (or political parties) hash it out while you watch rather than try to do something about it.

The metaphor is a bit of a stretch but what I'm trying to say is that politics are messy and voting is one way that you can be a part of them, rather than stand by and do nothing while our country goes to shit.

3. Your vote is one of the effective ways to communicate with your government. 

Let's face it, most people don't get the opportunity to communicate with the U.S. government in any way, shape, or form. Believe it or not, voting is one of the only ways you can do that.

Your vote is a direct message about who you want in office and who you don't. While it may seem like you're one in a million, your ballot definitely impacts the outcome. Should you decide not to vote, then you're giving up the chance to have a say in politics and let your government know how you feel.

4. Why wouldn't you? Are you lazy?

To be completely honest, not voting is pure laziness. Through early voting, you have days and days and days to get to the polls and vote. Before that, you have months and months to register so it's damn near impossible to not get it done.

If you "forgot" to register or "forgot" to vote, your procrastination skills are through the roof, and that's not something to brag about in a job interview. I suggest you buy yourself a planner and start writing stuff down.

Both registering to vote and voting are short and simple tasks, especially if you take advantage of early voting. If you had weeks to do both of them and didn't do either, you might want to consider buying three planners just to get that extra help.

5. Because you just should as a citizen of the United States. It's the right thing to do. 

If the four previous points didn't convince you, I don't know what will.

You should vote. It's the right thing to do and you'll feel good about it afterwards. I promise. If you care about democracy, politics, freedom, human rights issues, etc., you should vote. Here you have this awesome opportunity to share your voice and make a difference. Now, take it.