Monday is Oct. 1, and if you haven’t done so, you will have seven days to go to the circuit clerk’s office and register to vote in the Nov. 6 general election.

The right to vote in elections is a gift we have in this country that people living in some other countries don’t have. It’s a right guaranteed us by the Constitution, something we should not take lightly, and one that many people have refused to exercise for one reason or another over the past elections, and voters in Warren County are well-known for not showing up for elections.

In the June congressional primary, 6 percent of the county’s registered voters turned out. In the June 2017 municipal elections, 30.5 percent of the city’s 12,766 registered voters, turned out to cast ballots in the election for the Board of Mayor and Aldermen and the referendum on a 2 percent tax on food and beverages sold in restaurants and hotel rooms. In August 2015, 27 percent of the county’s 27,123 registered voters, cast ballots in the party primaries for county offices.

Our largest turnout was 50 percent for the 2016 presidential elections.

We have a chance to improve that turnout in November with the congressional elections.

If you haven’t registered to vote, now is the time to do so. Go to the clerk’s office, ask for the registration form and fill it out. If you are already registered, make plans to get out of the house on election day and go to the polls and cast your ballot.

This election, regardless of whether you’re a Republican of Democrat, independent, liberal or conservative, is very important. We can have a hand in determining the direction of the country for at least the next two years, because the people we elect (or re-elect) to office will be making the decisions that will set that direction.

Given the close primary races across the country, the excuse of “my vote doesn’t count” no longer carries weight. Every vote counts, and every vote can change the complexion of a race.

So those of you who haven’t taken the time to go register to vote, get up, go to the clerk’s office and get registered. You have a tool to make the country better; use it.