“This election is the most important election of your life, so make sure to vote.” This is a typical call to action in our political discourse — so common that it seems as though every election is the most important of one’s life. This sentiment has been repeated many times to the point that it ceaselessly echoes and reverberates, and it produces semantic satiation (which is the phenomenon of hearing a word or phrase in repetition to the point that it loses meaning — becoming nonsensical).

Ignoring hyperbole and instilling meaning: why should you vote? In the simplest of terms, you should vote out of civic duty to participate in our democratic, representative institutions. It is an answer that sounds cliché — because it is — though, upon examination, it becomes valuable and pertinent.

To establish what is obvious: the person reading this likely has the right to vote. The Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America states, “The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.”

By having the right to vote, you are entrusted as an individual to make decisions regarding efficacy, which is establishing and maintaining a government where officials are elected to carry out a myriad of tasks. To forgo your right to vote is to voluntarily omit yourself, your views and positions from electoral contention.

Whereas the individual’s vote does not determine elections, the collective’s vote does; by extension, the collective determines who elected officials are. By definition, elected officials represent the collective, advocating for enacted policies that were of their campaign’s platform, which typically derives from their political party affiliation. Further, as is often asserted in the field of political science, voter turnout is lowest among the young, typically characterized as being between the ages of 18-24, relative to other age groups.

This begs the question: is it possible for a representative government to be genuinely representative if segments of the voting population do not vote relative to other segments? Of course, being an elected official mandates that you represent everyone, regardless of whether or not they vote for you; however, not voting has severe consequences for the policy initiatives sought by elected officials.

Oxford Languages defines the Overton window as “the spectrum of ideas on public policy and social issues considered acceptable by the general public at a given time.” As it pertains to the United States, the relevant criterion for mapping the Overton window is the views and positions of elected officials; this is because the primary constraint levied upon the Overton window is the general public, and elected officials represent the views and positions of the general public in the United States.

To reiterate: to forgo your right to vote is to voluntarily omit yourself, your views and positions from electoral contention. You are an individual whose actions are the only ones immediately in your control. To rely on others to espouse, support, and confirm your views and positions is folly, and when adopted as a universal maxim, necessarily denies the ability of your views and positions to be shared by elected officials. The Overton window does not include your views and positions if you do not vote; elected officials do not share your views and positions if you do not vote.

To pose the question again: why should you vote? Again, in the simplest of terms, you should vote out of civic duty to participate in our democratic, representative institutions. If you choose not to participate in our democratic, representative institutions, they stand no chance of representing your views and positions. Further, if young people do not vote relative to other population segments, young people’s views and positions will not be represented in government. If you want your government to represent your views and positions, you should vote; voting is the most direct way to assert your views and positions.

To quote political scientist Larry Sabato, “Every election is determined by the people who show up.” The people who show up determine the views and positions of elected officials.

James Summerville is an undergraduate student at Kent State University, majoring in political science.

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