NJ Girls Elena Tsemberis, Emma Axelrod and Sammi Siegel start a petition for change | http://www.huffingtonpost.com

If you aren’t old enough to vote, you may not care about the next election. You should, but sometimes it’s hard to get excited about something that affects you so greatly and yet, you have no say in. I would, however, urge all of you to share your opinions and thoughts about the election with the adults  in your family and in your lives who are old enough to vote. Who knows? Your opinion may change (or help someone else figure out) the way they think and plan to vote.

So, while you may not watch the next presidential debate (I watched the first one with my 14-year-old nephew, so who knows), here’s one thing you should know about/reason why you should care ~ there will be a woman moderating the debate, thanks, in part, to three New Jersey high school students who petitioned for there to be one.

Basics- so the presidential debate has the two candidates (President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney) face off in a live televised discussion about the issues/where they stand/what their plan is for America. They are basically trying to convince those people who are undecided that they are the best person for the job and get the people who’ve already decided excited about showing up at the polls on November 6th. The debate is moderated by a journalist who puts on his/her impartiality fairness hat and tries to ask the questions that the American public wants to know and keep them each from talking over each other and going over their allotted response time. This happens to varying degrees of success.

The first debate, earlier this month, was moderated by Jim Lehrer and, if you’re interested, you can google what most people thought of it. (Basically, the president lamed out, Romney did his thing and the moderator didn’t moderate). The vice-presidential debate, held last week, was much better and an actual debate. (Vice President Biden got all in Congressman Paul Ryan’s specifics, Ryan made some pointed jabs and the moderator ~ O.G. journalist Martha Raddatz  ~ held it down.

The debate tonight is going to be the final presidential debate, where the president and Mitt Romney face off again. And it’s really important for both to do well. The point of all of this that may matter to you is that CNN reporter Candy Crowley is moderating it ~ this is he first time a woman has done so in 20 years and is partly due to the petition started by Emma Axelrod, Elena Tsemberis and Sammi Siegel. After learning in their high school civics class that the last woman to moderate a presidential debate was in 1992 (!), they stated a petition at change.org. The petition was a huge success, garnered over 118,000 signatures and lots of support from public figures for their call for a woman moderator. And, well, they got their wish.

“It’s important for teenage girls to see women with political power,” Elena Tsemberis told MassLive.com. “The more we only see men in positions of authority, the more girls teach themselves to believe we’re not as worthy or important or capable as men.” Source

Side note: If you have an issue you’re really passionate about, you might want to consider starting a change.org petition. Some of them really take off and who knows, once people know what you’re fighting for/against, additional help may come pouring in.