During a uniquely critical time, the 2020 presidential election will be the determination of the future of the nation. Democratic candidate Joe Biden is facing off against Republican Donald Trump in an election many see as a defining moment in American history.

 The Black Lives Matter movement is playing a big part in determining the outcome of the election, alongside the COVID-19 virus, which is potentially jeopardizing in-person voting, and some candidates vocally claiming that mail-in ballots can be subject to fraud.

“I am very concerned about this upcoming election,” AP Macroeconomics teacher Nathan Sell said. “Liberal democracies allow room for political opponents to disagree, but these opponents should also agree to be persuadable in order for this type of political regime to function properly. In other words, people arguing in a democracy should give ultimate power the “unforced force of the better argument” in public discourse. The American electorate has increasingly sealed itself off from being open to persuasion such that I worry political discourse may simply break down as each begins to seek alternative means of coercion to achieve their political goals that weaken democracy in the end.”  

More and more students register to vote every year. This year, the numbers are even higher, facing a critical election and the belief that their rights have been jeopardized. Many minorities have spoken up about wanting to make a change in the system. With increasingly more cases of police brutality surfacing, many Americans believe the time for this change is now.

 “I think the nation has finally realized injustices against black Americans and it’s about time it was brought to national attention,” senior Ginji Gautum said.

 “The vast majority of political science research over the last few decades have repeatedly shown that voter fraud is a negligibly small problem in the United States,” said Sell. “Concerns over mail-in voting and measures to reduce it are “solutions” in search of a problem that ultimately weaken and unnecessarily restrict access to voting, the opposite of pursuing a more democratic process.”

Now that the virus has prevented many people from going to vote, the United States has implemented mail-in voting in more than half the states, excluding Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, requiring most voters to provide an excuse beyond COVID-19 to vote by mail. 

“Mail-in voting is already being messed with through the removal of mailboxes,” said Gautum. “And they will most likely prohibit in-person voting due to COVID. As I see right now, democracy might be in danger.”

President Trump himself repeatedly suggests that mail-in voting is a fraud, even though he has voted by mail in Florida. 

It has been brought to everyone’s attention that this upcoming presidential election will be one to remember. In the new decade of 2020, whose hands will the future of the United States democracy be held in? The decisions of the American people will determine what the future of this country holds.