With James Allsup being certified as a Precinct Committee Officer in Whitman County and the recent decision of the WSU Board of Regents to approve an athletics deficit plan that includes doubling student fees, it is time for students to start realizing that their newest job is to start stepping up to the voting polls, now more than ever.

Allsup received his position unopposed and there were no votes involved in the process. That’s fine. That’s how most political careers start—with tiny, easy positions. But we need to recognize that now that he’s in a position to move up to higher positions that involve community votes, he will do so, and that’s where we need to step in and stop him.

Meanwhile, the student fee will eventually be presented to ASWSU and if approved, it will be up for a student vote. Little voting numbers could work in athletics’ favor.

But what is it going to take to get students to actually pay attention and vote?

As “new adults,” there is a level of responsibility to be learned here. ASWSU is small, but still important, and the impact of the votes can be seen more readily than in the federal government, though that doesn’t mean it is any less important.

This is a great way to understand how important a simple, individual vote can be.

A mere 28.1 percent of the student body voted in the last ASWSU election, while according to CNN little over 50 percent of U.S. citizens voted in the 2016 election, the lowest voting percentage since 1996.

Most people, students included, have been avoiding the polls and hoping for the best because they don’t know where they stand, they don’t pay attention or they are simply unaware of the voting happening.

“I basically wasn’t aware it was time to vote,” said Wyatt Nevins, a creative writing major. “I half blame a lack of exposure and marketing on behalf of the ASWSU process but I also wasn’t paying a terrible amount of attention.”

Many don’t realize that it starts from the ground-up. It starts small.

This last presidential election was an absolute train wreck in more ways than one for this reason, and the ASWSU election had only a small amount of the student body voting, many unaware of the election even happening, which left us with an ASWSU President and Vice President already questioned in their motives after misuse of funds for campaigning purposes.

We are the generation that has the ability to change things, but we’re acting scared or apathetic towards this fact. We pride ourselves on our voices yet we’re choosing to stay silent or we are left in the dark by our peers.

It’s time to own up to our mistakes, and realize the impact of our voices and votes. We can’t sit around and expect people to pick up the pieces for us. This is all our mess. Now we need to own up to it and start cleaning it up.