“When you vote for a third party, you’re wasting your vote.” How many times have you heard that in your life? The followers of the two big corporate-influenced political parties we affectionately know as the Republicans and the Democrats consistently trot out such statements when some grassroots progressive offers a third option.

It is easy to assume that if you do not fit within either of the big parties, your vote will not be heard. If your vote won’t be heard, why vote at all? This self-defeating attitude could be why there is a discrepancy between the percentage of active voters in our age bracket and the percentage of active voters in older age brackets.

According to the 2004 voting census of college graduates, 67 percent of 18 to 24 year olds voted. This is slightly less than 10 percent lower than the next age bracket, and Americans 45 years old and up had a nearly 85 percent voting rate. Even on this campus, in our admittedly one-sided SA elections, voting rates were atrociously low. When a candidate wins a seat with 107 votes in a university of 25,000 plus students, we are not just being lazy. We are telling our representatives in the “real” government that we don’t vote in nearly the numbers as our parents’ generation, and therefore politicians will not and should not appeal to us as a demographic. We complain our government does nothing for us and that we are left behind and ignored. The simple explanation is that if we do not make our voices heard we cannot expect our heartless government to listen.

Politicians focus almost exclusively on statistics, so to make our voices heard we have to go out and vote. We’ve heard this a thousand times by now from numerous smarmy advertisements assuredly sponsored by the Democrats and the Republicans in an effort to recruit more followers. However, what’s important to take away from the ads is the message that our vote does actually count.

This brings us back to the Green Party. As previously stated, the current representation long ago came to the realization that since we do not vote, our opinions do not really matter enough for those in power to cater to us. The current representation is made up of Democrats and Republicans. It would be foolish to support the people who gleefully abandon us for their own advantage.

Who does this leave us with to turn to? Grassroots campaigns: groups who are pulled together by the passionate, the disenfranchised and the up-and-comers. In other words, people like you and I. We are these grassroots people. We have to be if we are to retain any sort of individuality whatsoever, rather than sell ourselves short in the interest of comfort. Contrary to what they’d have you believe, we owe nothing to the people in power. We do owe it to ourselves to go out and make our voices heard. So when you go out and vote and become a vocal statistic instead of an ignored one, vote for who represents your best interests — the smaller parties who are closer to us than the overblown corporates could hope to be.

Of course, don’t take my word for it. If you really believe in something, no matter what it is, then make it known. Whatever you do, think about what’s important to you and act on that. Any vote made is a worthwhile vote.