I spend most of my time trying to get young people to vote. I remember vividly, during my senior year of college, learning how to use data to understand politics. When we started looking at voter turnout data, I got so excited explaining why people, specifically young people, do not vote. First, because I honestly could not understand why young people wouldn’t want to vote. Second, because I thought if I understood why, then I could solve the problem so they would all vote.

Here’s the deal, I registered to vote in 1992 when there were actual obstacles to registering to vote. I had to pay long-distance fees to talk to my permanent home’s county clerk to get registered, because my 18th birthday was after I left for college. They had to send me a paper form, with an envelope and a stamp, because there was no internet then. Then I had to mail that back, wait a little while, call to make sure it arrived and then get myself an absentee ballot. They had to mail that ballot to me and I had to mail it back, all so I could vote in my very first election while living in a city two hours away. Does this sound like a “I had to walk uphill both ways in the snow to get to school” story? Maybe it is, but it’s true.

In my class last week, I put a QR code on the screen for my students; all they have to do is scan the thing and register to vote, because the internet makes their life so much easier than mine. I may have said something like, “If all you have to do is scan this thing, scan this thing!” Most of them picked up their devices, scanned the QR code and maybe they registered. Part of why I tell them that is because I genuinely enjoy being old and torturing young people. Another part is that one of the ways I’m solving the problem of young people not voting is trying to infect them with my absolute excitement about this election cycle. I want them to be as excited as I was when I was 18 and finally able to vote.

In another class, I engaged in a spirited discussion before class started about whether we should be trying to get people to vote. One of my students disagreed with my efforts and argued that we should go back to having property requirements or poll taxes. Another student said that voting should be accessible to everyone but maybe some have to pay. I put forth the position that maybe people with Ph.D.s should get 10 votes. And the thing is, I have read enough bad first-year essays about the American government to understand the argument that says maybe restricting voting access is a good idea. But I hold firm and walk myself back from that authoritarian ledge!

This is a republic. We vote for people to represent us. Then we whine and rend garments and gnash teeth when we don’t win because we think somehow our thoughts and opinions on policy are superior to the other half of our country. We are the worst versions of ourselves when we are doing that. One choice is to limit voting to the chosen elite who maybe will not behave so emotionally. Another choice is to educate the heck out of people so they stop whining and acknowledge the other half has something to offer, and that just because we disagree with someone does not mean that person is wrong. It’s possible we just have a different point of view. We educate people so they stop demonizing each other.

This is how I know I’m right and my student who wants us to limit the electorate is wrong: because I am doubling down on education, which has been a key feature of this country since at least the Northwest Ordinance. Everyone should have access to voting and everyone should have access to voter education. Not persuasion. Not indoctrination. Education. We need to have robust debates between candidates. We need to have campaign ads that inform us about policy positions. We need to have challengers who run, even when there is no hope of winning, so they can raise new ideas. And finally, we need voters who know how to find out the answer for themselves to the question of who to vote for. The best way to get them is not a Ph.D. or wealth or property, but a vibrant election cycle that gives them all the information they need.

Leah Murray is a Brady Distinguished Presidential Professor of Political Science and the academic director of the Olene S. Walker Institute of Politics & Public Service at Weber State University.

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