by Ron Robbins

Created on: March 15, 2007   Last Updated: October 22, 2008

Why should you vote in the next election? Is it really worth it? There can be a lot of answers to this question, and maybe the one you feel better with personally is the correct decision. If you don't think you can make an informed decision about who should lead our country, why should you vote? For people who don't feel they can make an informed decision, perhaps the idea to stay at home and watch the chaos unfold on television is the better choice.

However, my parents always told me I should vote or I would have no right to complain about who wins an election. I agree with this theory, because without officially expressing your opinion through the masses, you have no investment into the election outcome. You may have had an opinion, but without expressing your opinions you may as well have none at all. You can complain about the winning candidate all you want, but if your vote wasn't in the system cancelling out someone else's vote, what does it really matter? Absolutely nothing.

If everyone votes, the next president will have a much more successful approval rating than our current president has, as all opinion is considered into the election process. The more people who vote for someone, the less people end up complaining in the end because so-and-so won the election. If you want to be one of those people, stay home and don't exercise your freedom to express your opinion. But don't complain afterwards; You apparently didn't care enough to be involved.

Some tips on choosing a better candidate are to pay attention a little bit to television. Watch some debates, even if they bore you. Read the newspaper. Read some blogs. Read anything you can find about the candidates. Information about them is virtually everywhere because they're all trying to win like a group of vultures fighting over a decomposing carcass.

The government does not own the people, we own the government and they work for us to hopefully produce a more peaceful and law abiding society. They keep society in order on a national and sometimes international level. At least, that's our hope. This is a serious issue, and people need to wake up and pay attention.

Sure, the electoral college changes things slightly, but it's not a heavily deciding factor on who wins. That's a ridiculous excuse not to vote, and sometimes well used. The President of the United States holds a major position in the world today, and selecting the right candidate is of considerable importance. Your opinion is important, and if you feel like expressing your political opinions, there is no more powerful way than with a vote.

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