Election season is in full force and with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump leading the way, many Hamline students seem disillusioned with the prospect of voting entirely.

If you asked a Bernie Piper, they’d likely tell you that the crux of Bernie Sanders’ fan base lies on a united hatred of corporate greed. His position as a democratic socialist appealed to many who have suffered at the hands of the upper-class: he has strong ideas to remedy student loan debt, lack of affordable housing and high unemployment rates. Naturally charging issues, especially for college students.

Sanders rallied people old and young, make no mistake. His talk of revolutions inspired the disenfranchised and his stances on hot-button issues like the legalization of marijuana, LGBTQIA+ rights and social justice lit a fire that has yet to be put out, even after he dropped out of the presidential race.

Even though Sanders endorsed Clinton, many of his supporters remain apprehensive, even skeptical. Clinton claims to represent many of Sanders’ values, but the group of people Sanders so passionately led aren’t exactly drinking the Kool-Aid.

And that’s the real problem—not that the U.S. has two great candidates or two terrible ones; it’s that an enormous demographic of voters are likely not going to vote at all.

Both Clinton and Trump have led such divisive and controversial campaigns that they have completely polarized the presidential ballot to the point where their constituents don’t feel comfortable being represented by either side.

The feeling of indifference engendered by the extremes presented on both sides only exacerbates the issue further among undergraduates on campuses like ours. The student population harbors resentment for the absence of voices in politics they can relate to.

The argument no longer revolves around which candidate might do the job better, nor has it been about their individual values and principles. Taking into account the fact that few among Hamline undergraduates feel represented to any significant degree by either Clinton or Trump, the sentiment largely amounts to the idea that silence via abstention speaks louder than any action in support of either of them.

While Trump seems to spew narcissistic, overtly bigoted and downright ludicrous nonsense on the daily, Clinton is not without her drawbacks according to a few Hamline students. Clinton’s lack of professionalism seems to detract from her appeal similar in kind, if not in degrees, to Trump’s general self-contradictory, self-righteous sputtering.

Hamline students fight numerous battles for the benefit of being able to voice their concerns and enunciate on issues that matter to them. In some countries, refusing to vote counts as a punishable offense having disastrous consequences; something that many Hamline undergraduates are likely trying to escape from. As students consider abstention, they are faced with the reality that, in this election, there will indeed be consequences one way or another.