By SEAN FLAMMAND, Guest Writer

The majority of Americans exercised their right to vote in November. The election re-elected President Barack Obama, rather than electing Mitt Romney, the contender. It is our constitutional right to vote, and unfortunately, very few American voters exercise that right fully.

When going to vote, it’s often thought of as a simple choice between two options. “Do I vote Democrat or Republican?,” is the question that is asked most often. After making that decision, citizens step into the booth to vote. Sitting on the same ballot as the Romney/Ryan and Obama/Biden pairs were two other sets of candidates. “There are more than two parties?,” we ask.

In all the flurry of these political campaigns, many voters came to the realization that they didn’t favor either of the two candidates. Sadly, voters still proceeded to base their votes on which candidate they found less distasteful. All the unpleasant attack ads between the candidates turned this year’s election into a decision between the lesser of two evils. This has become the unfortunate norm of election campaigns today. The lesser of two evils is still an evil.

When someone declares that they dislike both candidates, yet still plan to vote for one of them, they weren’t informed that there are more than just two candidates.

In their reply, they inevitably cited one of two reasons, “I can’t let this guy into the White House” or “They’ll never win anyway, so why waste my vote?”

These two replies are exactly what is wrong with our democracy today.

The first is wrong for two reasons. First, every election is made out by the candidates to be the most important one we’ve had yet. Eventually more people will believe it until the next one after that. Secondly, the founding fathers would be appalled to see our democracy turning into nothing but insults and negative ads rather than policy issues.

If you don’t like either candidate, simply vote for someone else and don’t wait until it’s the same story in the next election.

Second, voting against a candidate rather than voting for the one you want is a wasted vote. Voting is all about voicing your opinion. Voting for someone means you support them and their ideas.

Simply spreading word of voting third party will make others contemplate doing the same. All it takes is you voting for the candidate you share beliefs with, not against the one you don’t.

This year’s election may be over, but the decision will affect many future generations.