Divisiveness, demagoguery and downright stupidity has been on the forefront of American politics for the last 12 months. Regardless of your political leaning, or lack thereof, I think we can all agree that xenophobia, global warming and systematic racism are currently ‘huge deals’ in America.

Now, before you begin to mumble under your breath, “Why am I reading this liberal yahoo’s left-wing conspiracies?” know this: I am independent, I am white, I am 20 and I am studying English. Oh, and I could care less in what you believe. I just want you (Yes you, Carl) to go out and vote in elections that decide more than just who gets to move in to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. I want you to turn off whatever infotainment fodder you consume and to vote in elections where your voice will mathematically count more: state elections.

Raleigh, not Washington, is where the focus of our bureaucratic malaise should go towards. Misanthropes would love to convince you that your vote, i.e. your civic duty, means nothing. Although I disagree with this statement completely, the anarchists’ claim is rooted in a bit of truth.

According to David Walbert’s article “Does my vote count? Understanding the electoral college,” one vote in North Carolina during a presidential election is weighted as .91 of a vote per person. This calculation is determined by the following: Weighted Votes = (Total US Population / Total US Electoral Votes) / (State Population / State Electoral Votes).

Now, some of you may be asking yourselves, “Is this even fair?!” and as much as I would love to give you a short, sweet and didactic response, I cannot. I can only tell you that the debate around the electoral college has been a continuous and contentious one and I recommend you do a quick Google search or two to form an opinion.

For then you could go, let’s say, voice that newfound opinion in, I don’t know, elections without an electoral college? But then you would actually have to go out to the polls in the first place, and who would want to do that? Who would want join the 14 percent of primary voters in North Carolina who turned out to vote in 2010?

You? Yes, you, for you care about your future, don’t you? You want there to be a functional and bipartisan government, one which represents your interests and your family.

Well, if you truly want it, Carl, then you better go show those ‘gosh darn liars’ in Raleigh you mean business by voting in congressional elections. For if you want politicians to be more representative of their districts’ values and beliefs, then you have to show the incumbents that the status quo is not something that you stand for.

“The smaller the voter pool becomes, the more weight a single vote carries and the easier it becomes for an active, partisan minority to determine an election’s outcome. Thus, highly-polarized politicians come to represent a moderate constituency,” according to Paul Steenkiste’s article “The Effect of Voter Turnout on Political Polarization.”

So Carl, as much fun as it is to complain and argue about how it has been the politician’s fault for the state of America, maybe, just maybe, you and your peers can look into hearts (and backyards) and see that we are the ones that have created this mess in the first place.

We have created a polarized system of politics through apathy, and in order to change it we must do what our forefathers died for us to do: Go out and vote, not just in the presidential elections, where we can easily fall into altruism, but in the state and city elections, where our voices can be heard and counted for everything that they are worth.