Have you decided whether you’re going to vote in the upcoming election?

This election year, 41 million Gen Z members will be eligible to vote, according to the research organization Tufts’ CIRCLE.

That’s a lot of voters.

Maybe you’re thinking your vote won’t matter. You’re not alone.

A national poll by the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics found Gen Zers are less likely to vote this year than they were in 2020, when President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump. But it’s not true that your vote as a student doesn’t matter.

In Maryland, two U.S. Senate candidates are running in a race that could determine if the Senate has a Democratic majority or a Republican majority.

In the race for the White House, the winner could be the first black woman/the first Asian-American to hold the office of president, or it could be a former president who has been convicted of 34 felonies.

Which candidates do you want to win?

Young people ages 18 to 29 make up 21% of eligible voters in the United States, according to John Carroll University.

If all of us vote, do you think that would matter? We think so.

So as you’re deciding whether to vote, reconsider whether your vote counts. Even if you haven’t registered to vote yet, you still can at the polling place where you vote on Election Day.

You just need to show your driver’s license or a Maryland-issued ID. You can find your voting location on the Maryland. gov website, where all you need to do is type in your street and house number and ZIP code.

Easy. Worth it.

According to a poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 62% of Americans believe democracy is at risk. That means this election is one of the most important in our lifetime so far.

Do you agree?

Young voters have the power to change the future, but only if we vote. Your vote counts this year, more than ever. What will you decide?