A chill in the air has arrived in Minnesota and with it comes the election. Neither candidate from the two major parties is what young people desire for a leader. First-year student Nikolas Fischer spoke on how and why voting is so important.

“ … in all honesty, I think it’s up in the air for me when it comes to an individual’s vote mattering,” Fischer said. The topic of whether our votes count is such an interesting topic, but we have to bond together as a collective majority in order for our votes to matter.

We are all taught that voting is important, either by our teachers, our parents or our friends. We are always told that voting is essential to our democracy. 

“Yes…the only way for that to happen would be to have like-minded people come together and present that change and make it enough so that my interest becomes the mainstream. That’s very hard to do, but it can be done by voting,” Fischer said. 

Voting is more than just checking the box that most closely aligns with your personal values. It’s about collectively electing a representative that can speak for both you and for the members of your community.

This election could be a turning point in the United States. There have been so many movements, both political and social. The rigid system that we operate in needs major adjustments if we truly want it to be fair. Movements that protest the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor have sparked calls for change.

“I truly believe that a large government is not going to …fix our problems, it is going to create our problems. But we are stuck with it and it won’t change and that’s why we need to vote so that other people that we choose can do the change for us,” Fischer said. 

 Change will only happen if we make our voices and our votes heard.