What are you doing today? Going to class? Eating lunch? Taking a nap?

Why not take five minutes out of your day to vote?

Early results have been promising.

A completely unscientific study of the various voting locations on campus suggests that “a lot of people are out there voting.”

The polls have been much busier than expected all over campus as students have come out of the woodwork to stand up and be counted.

Stacks of ballots sit ready to be tallied.

It’s a nice change from last year, when only around 1,500 students turned out.

But we can do better.

There are still two days left to figure out who you want to represent you, and we at the Daily want to get you out to vote any way we can short of bursting into dorm rooms, rousting you out of your lofts, prying you from your studying and threatening you. We just don’t have the manpower.

But we can cajole you all we want and try to make you feel guilty for being substandard citizens. If we have to, then so be it.

You see, we have a responsibility to our community to inspire debate, act as a forum for controversy and make you think about things you might not normally think about.

That job isn’t always an easy one.

Sometimes it is downright thankless.

But eventually, you will all look back on our attempts to get you to vote and realize, “there was love in those editorials.”

Everybody else is voting, so why haven’t you?

What, are you too good for democracy? What if George Washington had felt that way? Then he wouldn’t have gone out and done all of that stuff he did to ensure the birth of our nation. He would have said, “I don’t want to fight Hessians today. I’d rather just hang out in my dorm room and watch ‘90210.’”

What if Thomas Jefferson had taken the attitude that the democratic process was too piffling to warrant working on the Constitution? We would be in some pretty deep water, friends.

You can’t be too busy. Oh sure, classes and studying take time, but the pleasure one receives in taking part in the political process cannot be beat.

The rewards of voting are intangible and aren’t as immediate as drinking, watching TV or spacing off, but when it comes to ensuring domestic tranquility, you’ve got to take a look at the big picture.

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Iowa State Daily Editorial Board: Sara Ziegler, Greg Jerrett, Kate Kompas, Carrie Tett and David Roepke.