President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely.The real safeguard for democracy, therefore, is education.”

Call me crazy, but I’m not sure ol’ FDR would classify today’s electorate as “prepared to choose wisely.”

The problem is the trend in America to urge people who have no business at a polling place to vote.

Across the nation there are public service announcements from brilliant political scientists like Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Black reaching out to young people to exercise their right.

Appalachian State University is no different.

On Sanford Mall, at least once a week in every class for the past month and a half, and even in the office at The Appalachian there is always someone handing out voter registration forms, pins for their favorite candidate, or, perhaps most telling, both.

But to be honest, if you weren’t registered until your roommate brought home forms because her professor was giving extra credit, you should stay home today.

If you hadn’t heard of Barack Obama and John McCain before they announced their candidacies (and if you have to ask when they announced their candidacies), you should stay home today.

If your answer when someone asks you why you’re voting for one candidate or another consists primarily of “change,” “hope,” or “experience,” you should stay home today.

True, when things go horribly awry ($750 billion generally qualifies) America tends to pick the right people to get things back on track.

But is that an excuse for risking the chance that you’ll be one of the people voting for the wrong guy, not because you make bad decisions, but because all the information you had came to you only after going through the spin room for one campaign or the other?

Would you wait until the day before you got married to investigate how your significant other feels about kids, or where you’ll live?

You can always get a divorce and pick another person, right?

We would be much better off if we consistently make good, solid political picks rather than having a few years of good government and then a couple of disastrous ones, one always followed by the other.

It would be un-American to revoke anyone’s right to vote.

Voting is the single most fundamental right we have.

However, each of us individually can look at ourselves and ask what we actually know about who we’re voting for. 

Some of us might find we aren’t as informed as we should be.

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