The students at Albany High School are disillusioned with the political system.

“It’s a joke,” said senior Christian Maodonado, age 17. “At this point I only support Hillary because she’s not Trump.” So many other future voters echoed similar thoughts, including Susanna Klose, another senior, who said that the election was “very upsetting at this point. I don’t love Hillary but Trump is simply not intelligent enough.”

These opinions are liberally skewed, but that comes as no surprise when one considers how Democratic Albany is. However, similar feelings are expressed even in the most conservative regions. Religious individuals feel that Trump is not a good role model, with the allegations of sexual harassment against him and his “vulgar language” counting against him, yet as these communities are largely Republican, they are staunchly opposed to electing former Secretary Clinton.

This many future voters expressing such beliefs about the election, one of the cornerstones of our democracy, is highly disturbing in many ways. These same kids will be eligible to vote in 2020, and many may choose not to, after disenfranchisement with the system convinced them that it’s simply “not worth it”. This undermines our system of government and the electorate will be reflected on poorly in the future.

This is also reflected on a nationwide scale, and both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are regarded as the most hated presidential candidates of all time. A fivethirtyeight.com article by Harry Enten ranked Hillary Clinton as having an unfavorability rating of approximately nine times that of Michael Dukakis, a 1988 Democratic contender for president, who lost in a landslide, winning only 111 electoral votes.

Trump is much worse, the first person ever to score above 50% on the FiveThirtyEight graph. This, of course, resulted in a bump in votes for independent candidates, notably Gary Johnson nationwide and Evan Mcmullin in Utah. There is, however, little doubt that one of the two major candidates will win, and some people still aren’t ready for such a scenario.

“I just feel uncomfortable,” said 11^th grader Ken Lee. “Our presidential candidates don’t seem like they’re doing their jobs correctly.” A lot of people also think this, as the scandals between our two candidates have stacked up higher than a giraffe on Mount Everest. Benghazi, the email scandal, and accusations of corruption have faced Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and the Access Hollywood video, Trump University, accusations of sexual misconduct, and incendiary rhetoric could all be attributed to Trump.

The point was successfully conveyed by all of these students: both candidates represent something which America should not be about. This election is one of the worst, and these candidates are some of the worst. But if you’re a voter, don’t neglect the booth. That only makes the representation of the true population inaccurate in the results and someone you don’t support could get elected. Whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, go and vote, and follow your conscience and beliefs, not for a candidate but against one.

It’s only four years.