If you know me at all, or even follow me on social media, you know the emphasis and importance I place on a person’s civic duty to vote. Casting a ballot is more than supporting a certain candidate, it’s about exhibiting that you care about the future of your country and your community.

The number one excuse I hear for abstaining from voting is the reasoning that a single vote cannot change the outcome or result of an election. But for college students, especially here at UT, that reasoning simply does not hold true.

Last year around this time, Kevin Helgren and Binna Kim, current Student Body President and Vice President, won their election to their university positions by an extremely small margin—143 votes to be exact.

Those 143 votes have made the difference on this university. Those 143 votes created an administration that has concentrated on the safety of students after the tragic death of student Haruka Weiser last year. Those 143 votes created an administration that wasn’t scared to stand up for students in an extremely volatile political year. Those 143 votes created an administration that focused on sexual assault prevention, voiced support for undocumented and marginalized students and at the very heart of it, cared about the well-being of the student body.

Not to be harsh, but the Student Government at the University of Texas isn’t student council at your high school. They aren’t planning prom or making posters. You walk through that office and you find members of your student body who aren’t just going to class and studying, but doing all of that, while governing the student body and making campus a better place for all of us.

Ever eaten at Chick-fil-A or Zen? Or grabbed coffee from the Starbucks in the Student Activity Center? The SAC was put into motion by Student Government. I spend most of my time in the SAC, studying or eating or hanging out with my friends. Had it not been for an administration with foresight, that area would be a parking lot. Literally. That’s what it used to be.

Ever taken Sure Walk on a late night of studying or when you got stuck somewhere on campus by yourself at night? That was a direct result of the Helgren-Kim administration, which cared about the student body, not in an ephemeral way, but so much so that they wanted a tangible way to help students.

Student Government makes a difference. And 143 votes, a handful when considering the sheer number of undergraduate and graduate students on this campus, could be the difference between an administration that knows what they’re doing when they advocate for the student body in President Fenves’s office or at the state capitol, and one that doesn’t. It doesn’t take much to understand that distinction is important.

So, vote. You don’t have to register. You don’t have to stand in a line. You don’t even have to leave your bed. Literally just click on this link or type utexasvote.org into your computer and you can do your part to advocate for yourself and the student body.

Do I have a preference for who you vote for? Yes, I do. I’ve been working on Isaiah Carter’s and Sydney O’Connell’s campaign for the executive alliance for weeks now, because I truly believe they are the most equipped team to handle this job. Having known the two of them, both through this campaign and now personally, the conversations I have with them, the platform they’ve introduced, and the environment they want to see on campus encourages me to envision a positive and beautiful future for this university and I do not say that lightly. Sydney co-founded Not On My Campus, an organization that raises awareness about sexual assault prevention and rape culture on college campuses. Isaiah has been working as Chief of Staff for the Helgren-Kim administration and was the main operator behind the implementation of Sure Walk.

Isaiah and Sydney are not only qualified, but have the spirit and service-oriented purpose that I wish I saw in all political candidates. Your problems are their problems. I’ve seen it firsthand, the way in which both of them hold your concerns close to their heart, and in Sydney’s case, in a notebook she carries around to document what she hears from students. These little things matter. They have shown me that they care about me and value my identity. I hope that you take that into consideration when casting your vote. 

At the end of the day, it’s your decision. You can decide who to vote for. But make a decision. Don’t leave it for a small handful of students to decide. 143 votes decided last year’s election and one of those could be yours.