Election Day is nearly upon us. And instead of cold-calling you and everyone you know, we’d rather invite you to consider a few important (and non-partisan!) election-related questions. Like how did we get such a strange voting system? Why do more than 40% of eligible voters stay home? And why should we care?

For some answers we turned to Erin Geiger Smith, author of the new book Thank You For Voting: The Maddening, Enlightening, Inspiring Truth about Voting in America.