North Texas Daily

February 3, 2020 is the final day to register to vote for the primaries in the upcoming presidential election, so it is as good a time as ever to shift focus into registering to vote, but also thinking about what candidate you would like to have represent you as an individual.

Talks of elections, voting, registering and other related terms can cause confusion and stress among potential voters. However, making sure that you are registered to vote to allow your voice to be heard is the right thing to do, no matter the outcome of any election. Registering to vote is essential in any type of election, whether it be presidential or local, so making sure that proper registration is complete by the final day is key to ensuring your civic duty and privilege of being able to vote is secured.

In 2018, there was a massive surge in college voters for the midterms elections when turnout almost doubled from the anemic 19 percent of college voters in the 2014 election, according to a study by insidehighered.com. While this upcoming deadline registration is for the primaries, it is important to highlight that such a major turnout was noted in a previous time when college voters were historically known to be low turnouts. There can only be hope that for the upcoming primaries, college students defy the odds once again and post an even larger increase in turnout to show everybody else that our input matters.

As college students, it is utterly integral for us to show up in droves for any voting situation. This upcoming presidential primary election is so incredibly important — we all need to make sure we are registered and ready to go when it comes time to cast our votes. Sometimes others can balk at the thought of college students turning up and voting to make sure a proper candidate is chosen to reflect who we are, so it is an absolute necessity that college students not only from all around Texas, but everywhere else in the U.S. too, go out and get registered to ensure that our voices and eventual votes will not be silenced.

As for Denton, there was a reported 296,968 people who voted in 2016 and 295,956 people who voted in 2018, according to the Texas Secretary of State website. While the decline in total number of voters is relatively small, there is still no reason for a decline to have taken place. For this upcoming election, Denton residents and UNT students should strive to have the highest voter turnout in Denton history. Call it unreasonable, unattainable or too ambitious, but the passion that runs through Denton and UNT should be enough for this goal to potentially become a reality.

There can also be an unfortunate mindset that if some think Trump is a shoo-in to win the presidential election again, that there is no reason to go out and get registered to vote. This is an unfortunate and troubling mindset because it is essentially saying that your personal vote does not matter nor that it will not properly incite change that is desired personally. The only negative thing one can do is completely disregard the deadline and not get registered at all because you think your one little vote will not matter. This is simply untrue. Every single person’s vote matters so if you desire a change to be made in any government office or not, getting registered and voting is the best possible thing to do. Do not let the closeness of the February cutoff date scare you off from registering to vote, there is still time and your vote deserves to be counted when the time comes.

Featured Illustration: Austin Banzon