Think you’re too busy, too stressed, or too irritated to vote in the 2024 presidential election? Think your vote won’t make a difference? Think again.

Maybe you support abortion access. In which case, your constitutional right to decide what you do with your body is on the line when the possibility of a conservative president comes into play. With differing state laws and recent Supreme Court cases bringing these rights into question, voting is the most effective way to make your voice heard.

Or perhaps you’re alarmed by increasing restrictions on gun ownership across the country. If you were to silence yourself, you would effectively be helping the other side limit your fundamental right to bear arms. As gun controversies play out across the country, the best way to protect your rights is to elect someone with the power and resources to do it for you.

But what if you’re somewhere in the middle, or simply have very little hope for either candidate? In both cases, voting once again emerges as the best course of action. By casting your vote, you can a) support a candidate whose views align more closely with your own or b) add one vote to the candidate who presents fewer problems. One of the candidates is definitely going to become president—why throw away the opportunity to make it someone you agree with more (or dislike less)?

In a broader context, however, exercising the right to vote takes on an even more significant value. The heroes of history fought relentlessly to secure suffrage rights, against systems that did everything they could to stop them. Having a say in what goes on in your own country is too often taken for granted . Countless leaders have shed their blood, sweat, and tears to progress to a country where everyone eighteen or older can vote. If we dismiss voting as another irksome item to check off our to-do list—or, as many do, we voluntarily fail to do it when the time comes—the results are anything but democratic. Complacency and ignorance pave the slippery slope towards destruction. We don’t push back on violations of our liberties. Our rights get eroded little by little, our freedoms surrendered in bits and pieces until they’re all gone because we didn’t take action when we had the chance. This is what could happen if we let our duties go ignored.

Our democracy is one great American experiment sparked by our founding fathers and passed down for over two hundred years. There may be a lot of room for improvement, but it was set up to evolve as our society shifts with the times. “To achieve a more perfect union” was the standard that guided our forefathers while they traversed the unknown territory of our infant democracy. The only way to improve our country—to bring about change in alignment with the principles laid down upon our creation—is for each one of us to get out, speak up, and vote!