The presidential debates are done and, in most states, the registration process to vote is over. Now, we can really start to think about whom we will elect for office.

We students may be excited to vote for the very first time. Perhaps aside from the time we begin college, the time we first vote is one of the few significant stages in life that lets us know we are adults and are ready to partake in the decision-making process of the state and the nation. Indeed, I think this is a very admirable feeling. Then why is voter apathy among students so prevalent, and does our vote even matter?

Recently, I participated in an Op-Ed Live with The Washington Square News to discuss these issues.

One of the topics discussed was what has been wrong with past initiatives to mobilize students to vote, whether on campus or otherwise.  My opponent and I agreed that many students have apathy towards voting because they feel that their votes do not count, especially in a non-swing, solidly blue state such as New York. Nevertheless, my opponent emphasized the importance of voting as a mechanism for people to relay their interests to their politicians, as is the case in representative democracy.

However, I am less optimistic than my opponent about the importance of voting. It is not enough to mobilize students to vote. The question should instead be: how do you get students to participate in the political process so that they can affect meaningful change?

Student apathy towards voting is reflexively related to students’ lack of engagement in their own local communities such as their schools. For example, students are hardly involved in the massive NYU 2031 expansion plan. Only two student representatives are on the 2031 committee. It is only obvious that the already absurdly high tuition cost for many students is going to continue rising, and students do not want that.

This rigid, top-down model of decision-making, whether exercised on college campuses or in the wider political spectrum, does not produce outcomes that represent the interests of students and voters. And if students cannot even be involved with decision-making processes at their own school, we cannot expect them to be involved in broader capacities.

Thus, the institutional difficulties are something that we students have to address as soon as possible. I concede that substantial progress will not happen swiftly. While students are aware of these problems, we have not advanced to the second step: massive mobilization.

In the short term, there is only one way to make our vote meaningful. I agree with candidate Gary Johnson’s statement “waste your vote on me,” an appeal he made at a recent event organized by the NYU College Libertarians club. I just think that Mr. Johnson used poor phrasing.  Rather than labeling it as a “waste vote”, I would call it a protest vote. This way, our vote can actually matter.

The protest vote for a third party is one solution that directly challenges the de facto institutional framework at play, where Democrats and Republicans are the only two major parties, and arguably, are just two different faces of one business party. At the recent presidential debate at Hofstra University, local police arrested presidential Green Party candidate Jill Stein and her vice-presidential nominee, when they tried to enter the university in order to participate in the debate. This exemplifies how those with power will do anything to keep it and exclude others who challenge it.

Johnson’s appeal to the NYU community, urging us to stand up against the two-party monopolization of the political landscape, convinced me to vote for him and his vice presidential candidate, Judge Jim Gray. I urge all of my fellow students to vote for him, or another third party candidate, as a strategic move. I do not agree with all of Mr. Johnson’s proposals, but I do believe that if enough of us vote for him, then we can send a powerful message that might inspire us to bridge the gap from awareness to mobilization.

Edward Radzivilovskiy is a staff columnist. Email him at [email protected].