I’m going to be blunt here. Millennial college students, while great in a lot of ways, are abject failures when it comes to voting. Only 17 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds voted in the 2014 election. This low voter turnout is especially concerning when you consider that young adults, people between the ages of 18 and 29, are 21 percent of the eligible voters in the United States. If only 17 percent of your peers vote in this upcoming election, which can be called divisive at best, then how will our interests be represented? How will our voices be heard?

The lack of voting culture with millennial college students still confuses me -- college students who have championed everything from Black Lives Matter, rape culture, and the North Dakota Pipeline. Shouldn’t the same population be invested in the United States' political future? Shouldn’t students want to change the world with the ballot box and with protest?

A large part of the reason why that number is so low is because of a lack of education on how to register to vote, when to register, deadlines, and the voting process as a whole. If you live out of state, this can be an even bigger issue because of a lack of identification.

Well, here is one amazing thing to consider: 39 states now offer online voter registration. If you are not sure if you are registered to vote, but want to make sure it's up to date, click here. If you need other information about the upcoming election, click here.

But if you are not going to vote because you think Secretary Clinton and Mr. Trump are both equally bad, or you're state's not a swing state, so 'what does it matter?' and 'why bother voting on senate and house races when 95 percent of incumbents win re-election?' then I have something for you to consider.

Vote down the ballot. Local elections not only matter, but are decided by handfuls of votes. You want your vote to count? Look at your state's last state senate election. State senate races are won and lost on thousands, or even hundreds of votes. Senate District 8, Massachusetts, just reported a 9-vote difference between two senatorial candidates. But who cares about state senate right? They just decide whether or not women will get access to abortion services in Texas; if farm workers get overtime for working longer than 40 hours a week in the Central Valley, California; and send thousands of Oregon students to college.

We can’t be so focused on what is happening in DC that we forget our own backyard. You want your state or county to stay liberal or conservative? You want a higher minimum wage or stronger protection for small businesses? You want a pipeline or guarantee that there will be clean air for your children? Educate yourself, find out which state senators' and congressmen's values match your own. Find out which propositions you want to support and which you do not want your future to include. To find out more about your options, from non-partisan sources, check these places out: League of Women Voters, Project Vote Smart and Independent Voting Network.

Still not convinced? Well, I’ll let the incomparable CJ Cregg say the rest: