Tim Skubick put it best when he said “democ­racy doesn’t work when vot­ers don’t know the can­di­dates’ names they are vot­ing for.”

I have heard on numer­ous occa­sions that peo­ple are scared of the future because our gen­er­a­tion gen­er­ally does not have a strong inter­est in pol­i­tics. They say we are the future of this coun­try and that we should be more polit­i­cally engaged. And you know what, they’re exactly right.

What if some­one asked you who was run­ning for the next Attorney General of Michigan? Would you know? Unless you look at the front page of this news­pa­per, chances are you wouldn’t. The scary part is you prob­a­bly will vote even though you have no idea. If you are polit­i­cally involved that’s great, but the major­ity of col­lege stu­dents are just not interested.

Every other year thou­sands of peo­ple go into vot­ing booths with­out the slight­est clue as to who is on the bal­lot, other than the gov­er­nor or pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates. How would some­one with such lit­tle back­ground knowl­edge about the can­di­dates decide who to vote for? He or she would prob­a­bly choose a party line and vote straight down.

Voting the party line is an easy way out no mat­ter how lib­eral or con­ser­v­a­tive your beliefs. Typically speak­ing, the major­ity of can­di­dates within one party have sim­i­lar beliefs on con­tro­ver­sial issues like abor­tion and gay mar­riage. This is not always the case and is why it is impor­tant to be an informed voter.

You may be the most diehard Republican in the world, but that par­tic­u­lar nom­i­nee may not be the best choice for the city, state, or coun­try. I’m not advo­cat­ing for Democrats or Republicans. Voting should not be about agree­ing with a per­son on one or two issues. Chances are he or she dis­agrees with your beliefs about other top­ics anyway.

Voting should be about elect­ing the best per­son for the job. Ultimately what mat­ters is that we take the time to under­stand who we are vot­ing for. n

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