By Jill Chapin

October 20, 2008

As one of the largest voting blocs in the country, and with record numbers of you students having registered to vote in this pivotal election, you – our youngest electorate – are poised to literally change the world.

But first you must get out of bed on November 4.

You need to ease off on your Monday night alcohol consumption to avoid a bed-ridden hangover on the most critical day of your college career.

You need to study early so you don’t have to cram on election day.

You need to know where your polling place is located.

Elections have always been about the future. But never before has this nation left a bigger threat to your security in the years ahead than we have managed to leave to you.

One thing we did right, however, was to lower the voting age to eighteen several decades ago, thus putting enormous numbers of college students across the country in a powerful position in which to select the right leader in these oh-so-wrong times.

You have the muscle now to shape your own destiny. Your numbers are so massive that a few large universities in just a few swing states could alter the course of history. Please! Give us a blowout with unprecedented voter turnout in your age bracket. It’s a gift that you will be giving not only to yourselves but to your unborn children.

Too many in my generation can barely look you in the eye because we are so ashamed of the last eight years of this administration leaving you in such horrific circumstances. We have left you with wars, an economic meltdown, an environment in peril, an energy crisis of unknowable proportion, and a crumbling infrastructure. But the future is in your trusted hands if you recognize your own power to right these terrible wrongs we have bequeathed to you.

Do it – Vote! You have a proprietary stake in this country, and with it, the responsibilities inherent in any ownership. But you need to be an active participant. As comedian Chris Rock said, if you don’t vote, you’ll have no right to complain later.

So set your alarm clock on November 4 and then bang on all the doors to awaken everyone to their most important assignment ever. Get mad as hell and insist you’re not going to take it anymore.

Vote!