Vote. Yes, you should vote.

On Nov. 4, you will have the opportunity to perform your civic duty of voting.

And you should do it. Many of you won’t and won’t care. I get it. I understand. Especially if you’re an out-of-state student.

Why should you care about local, state and congressional elections? How do they affect you?

Let someone else learn about the issues and decide. After all, you’re very busy with school, work, etc.

Plus, you only have one vote, so what does it matter if you don’t exercise your right to vote?

You’re probably not even registered — and don’t know how to — so it’d be a lot of effort for little in return.

But you’re wrong. It does matter, even if it’s only one vote. And it’s really not that hard.

And yes, if you’re a full-time student from another state, you can register to vote here as long as you’re not registered in your home state.

Go to www.storycounty.com. They provide all the information you need to know on how to get registered as well as answer other questions that you may have.

After you get registered, you can actually vote right now. You can request an absentee ballot that will be mailed to you and you mail it back. Or you can visit the Story County Auditor’s office, which is in Nevada — about 10 miles east on Highway 30 — and vote during regular business hours.

You also vote because state and local elections have a much greater affect on your life than national elections.

After all, don’t you care about tuition rates? A lot of Iowa State’s funding comes from the state of Iowa. Therefore, it is important to know what candidates vying to represent your district have to say about funding eduction.

Plus, your interests on funding education may be different than the people who will probably vote in this year’s election. From polling I saw, it looks like tea party supporters are the ones poised to turn out in big numbers.

So it’s important for you to vote and show politicians that college students care and should be taken seriously. If college students don’t vote, why should politicians take our interests seriously since we don’t have a meaningful impact on election results?

After all, their goal is get elected and represent their constituents. Generally speaking, they listen more to constituents who vote and they hear from.

So please, get registered to vote, and then vote. If you don’t know who the candidates are or the issues for this upcoming election are, don’t worry.

My next column will discuss many of the candidates running for state and local office this year after I watched and listened to them at the MICA Poverty Forum last week.

If you’ll do your part, I’ll try to do mine.