As junior Emily Komie walks through the crowded hallways of GBN, the buttons pinned to her backpack advertising her support for President Barack Obama can be seen through rows of people.

Komie has been an active Obama supporter since she was in middle school. She watched MSNBC and CNN and followed all of his debates when he ran for office in 2008. Komie laughed as she said she even stayed up all night after he got elected.

“I always tell my friends about [Obama and] I get emails from his campaign,” said Komie. “I think he’s a very reliable candidate, a lot of the promises he made from his first campaign he’s kept . . . He was put into office with a really hard job after Bush’s presidency, and I think he’s done a good job getting America back to a medium average.”

Like Komie, senior Jack Nelson was “especially fascinated” with the 2008 election.

“I remember very clearly when the announcement was made, it was late at night, that was kind of a defining moment, that’s when I became really interested in politics,” Nelson said.

Nelson encourages other students to also become politically aware and realize that they “are not going to be in high school forever.”

“I think there are issues that, even if we aren’t directly affected, we should still care about,” said Nelson. “Very few students are going to be affected by how long the war in Afghanistan goes on, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be a moral and civil issue that people should be addressing. Just because it doesn’t affect you, doesn’t mean you have to take a backseat and ignore it.”

Molly Andolina, a professor of political science at DePaul University, said this election is particularly important for high school students because the two candidates have “opposing visions of the role of government.”

“Who wins will make a difference in to what extend government is involved in our daily lives,” said Andolina. “Whoever wins will also most likely appoint at least one, and as many as four, Supreme Court Justices, who decide the law of the land.”

Senior Conrad Wojtan, who considers himself a Libertarian, believes in very limited government action in people’s lives, and said he plans to vote for Mitt Romney this upcoming election.

Wojtan has followed politics since Obama was first elected in 2008. He said that as one of the few McCain supporters at Northbrook Junior High School, he was constantly finding himself in the midst of debates between kids he had “never seen involved in politics” because of the historical significance of the election.

“Obama did a great job of inspiring a whole youth to be involved in politics and I really admire him for that, but I just generally disagree with his [fiscal] policy,” said Wojtan. “I agree with [Romney’s] stances on shrinking the size of the government. We need to reduce the federal budget and decrease this political machine we’ve been feeding with unnecessary money. We need to trim the fat of the pig.”

Junior Mark Zemela, who has considered himself a Republican from when he was “old enough to understand what was going on,” also said the economy is the biggest issue in this election for him.

“I think the economy is getting [better], but I hope if [Romney’s] elected that he’d be able to get jobs back to the US,” Zemela said.

Zemela encourages students to find out information about both candidates for themselves because he believes the outcome of the election is applicable to everyone.

“Voters should read articles for themselves and find out their own information before they vote and not make their decision off of others,” said Zemela. “If the outcome of the election doesn’t affect students today, it will in four years when they’re in college and graduating. I think many kids don’t want to think that far into the future, but it’s relatively soon. The more you know, the better off you will be.”

Komie also believes that all students, no matter if they can vote or not, should be “aware before they make statements.”

“It’s important to know you have a voice, and you should use your voice,” said Komie. “Like [for] the underclassmen, this election will affect their community, affect their country, affect their parents … and to not know about it is kind of ignorant and foolish.”