The last day to register to vote in the November election is Oct. 24, and Doris Kearns Goodwin, the presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, stressed the importance of voting at Fresno State’s Save Mart Center on Monday night.

For the 2012 presidential election there was a 72 percent turnout rate — 13.2 million out of the 18.2 million registered voters voted, according to the California Secretary of State website.

Goodwin encouraged people to vote.

“However disheartened [eligible voters] feel, they should go to the voting booth anyways,” Goodwin said, “And even if they don’t want to vote for either one of the presidential candidates, vote for the people at the lower level.”

Goodwin said eligible voters should exercise their right to vote and if people are not voting, it shows the lack of the voting system’s strength.

“I think we have to keep the system of voting going — just decide what you want to vote for,” Goodwin said.

The presidential candidates are Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Clinton has the possibility of becoming the first female U.S. president. However, she has been overshadowed by Trump, said Goodwin.

Social media has impacted the way Trump has been showcased, she said. Normally presidential candidates can pay for advertisements on TV, but doesn’t generally appear on TV shows.

“He made such an impact through his social media and his tweets, that every show wanted him on even if he just called in because he just said something outrageous the night before,” Goodwin said.

By doing this, she said Trump is able to reach millions of people constantly through the news in a way he wouldn’t be able to do without social media.

She said an important election to reflect on is the 1912 election.

“The Republican Party was split then between its conservative and progressive factions, but more importantly, that’s when the first primary system was ever created,” Goodwin said.

In 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt wanted to run against his friend, William Howard Taft.

She said Roosevelt knew that Taft, as sitting president at the time, had all of the party delegates. So he created the Progressive Party.

“Its 13 states — they created primaries. And their campaign was so vitriolic, just much like today — maybe not quite as bad,” Goodwin said. ”Teddy said that Taft had the brain of a pig head or junk head, and Taft said that he was going to be a dictator — if he wanted three terms, he’d want four or five.”

Both men ran for presidency but lost to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

Goodwin said in her lifetime, the 2016 election has been the “least uplifting election.”

“I think it’s going to say that it’s the widest, most-crazy election we’ve had in our lifetime and a really disheartening election,” Goodwin said.