Do you smell that scent in the air? It’s a combination of old-people sweat, ballot ink and the stink of lies. The stench is unmistakable. Today is Election Day.

I, like many Americans, will not be voting today. Unlike many Americans, however, my decision not to cast a vote for Congressman Rock or Challenger Hard Place is a conscious decision.

I have a rather startling confession to make: I am completely uninformed about the issues surrounding this election, and have therefore decided to forfeit my right to choose who represents me in the newest season of Everybody Loves Congress. I, who weekly admonish the ignorant masses for being proverbial cattle awaiting slaughter at the hands of The Powers That Be, am wholly incapable of making an educated decision about the political direction I want this country to take. As irresponsible as this may be, I’m still higher up on the ethical totem pole than countless thousands of morons who will undoubtedly enter voting booths today and cast a ballot for a candidate based on nothing more than the color of the tie they wore in their campaign commercials.

I implore you all: do NOT participate in today’s election unless you’ve actually done your homework on the issues.

Unless you’ve read numerous sources on a variety of candidates and their respective stances on a wide range of subjects, chances are good that you don’t know enough to vote. If that’s the case, you’re better off staying home today.

Uninformed voting is a disservice to this country and a veritable mockery of the democratic process. It cheapens the value of voting privilege. Yes, Virginia, voting is a privilege, not a right. You want proof? Go talk to any one of the oft-celebrated purple-thumbed Iraqis who suffered life-threatening attacks while waiting in line to cast a ballot for the first time in their lives just last year. I sincerely doubt if any of those people had kindly asked their attackers to please stop treading on their “right to vote,” the aggressors would have felt compelled to put down their weapons in the name of goodwill and suffrage. We forget, sometimes, that the “rights” we take for granted here are privileges people are willing to fight and die for elsewhere.

In 2004, P. Diddy and a legion of other egotistical and entitled celebrities used MTV as a vehicle for their “Vote or Die” campaign. Encouraging the American youth to vote is a noble cause, but the slanted, biased nonsense preached by Diddy and his cronies is as potentially damaging as any youth-vote crusade sponsored by the Ku Klux Klan. In both cases, political biases infest their rhetoric, rendering whatever integrity their original message may have had null and void. These groups will stand before a crowd and encourage people to exercise civil responsibility, but fail to mention that voting without first being informed is akin to running head-first down a pitch-black hallway, and then having the gall to be surprised when you smack into a wall; no one is going to feel sorry for you when you hurt yourself.

One last thing. Though I’ve admitted my own failure to enlighten myself on the issues surrounding this election, I’m also accepting of the consequences of my shortcomings.

Understand this: if you’re too lazy to responsibly participate in today’s festivities, DON’T. But if you don’t, far less legitimacy will be lent to your complaints when the people elected screw you over (and they will). You and I both check a piece of our integrity at the door when we fail to do our duty as citizens.

Matt McFadden is a senior English and Arabic major. Yes, there is an ethical totem pole and the view from the top is fantastic.