Goodbye. Arrivederci. Sayonara.

The opportunity is gone. You missed it. Better luck next year; well, maybe in two years.

You missed your chance to make your voice heard. You missed your chance to enable yourself to vote.

Now, don’t get me wrong, you can still go today to vote for Homecoming court. But when it comes to voting in November, you missed it.

Yesterday was the last day that you would have been able to register and be able to vote in November’s election.

But how many of you really care? How many of you even knew there was an election? How many of you know what we’re voting for and who’s running?

I’d venture to guess more people on this campus could name three candidates running for Homecoming Queen than the three candidates of our governor ballot.

I’d venture to guess that no one even knows who our U.S. Representative is for this district, let alone who he’s running against.

How many of our U.S. Senators are up for reelection? That’s right. You don’t care enough to know. Can you even name our two senators? Probably not. Everyone knows Barack Obama, our junior senator, but who is our senior senator?

Do you want to hear the saddest part about you missing the voter registration deadline? The opportunity was handed to you on a silver platter. All throughout the semester, there were voter registration drives on campus. Where were you for those?

Oh, that’s right. You were too busy campaigning for the representatives of your Greek house to be elected Homecoming King and Queen.

On Monday, the day before the deadline, two events happened on campus. Student Senate, College Democrats and EIU Republicans hosted a Rock the Vote voter registration drive. Homecoming elections also opened.

Though I don’t have the exact figures, I would assume it is safe to say that more people turned out to vote for Homecoming court than registered at Rock the Vote.

I understand that college students do not necessarily see the importance in voting, but there is a way to look at it that maybe can relate to this whole Homecoming royalty thing.

In a monarchy, that would be where a king and queen are in charge, only the rich and powerful have the right to vote, if even they are so fortunate. The ones without voting rights are the peasants and peons who clean horse stables and scrub floors.

In our country, we all have the ability to take the role of the rich and powerful and vote.

But if we choose not to, we are no better than the ones cleaning stables. So, basically, if you didn’t register to vote, go grab your kneepads and pooper-scoopers and get to work on cleaning up the messes left behind by everyone else.

If you are registered to vote, your job still is not done. There is one more step you need to remember. In a few weeks, when Election Day comes, be sure to voice your vote and your opinion.

If you are registered at home in another district, be sure to get your absentee ballot from the county clerk’s office before that deadline passes on November 2.

If you’re registered here in Charleston, be sure to get out and vote.

If students would care as much about real elections as they do about the Homecoming ones, we could make a real difference in our state and in the nation. Believe it or not, we can do more than elect some Greek kids to ride in a car during a parade.