Voters will cast final ballots Tuesday in one of the most pivotal presidential elections in U.S. history. The importance of your vote cannot be overstated. Failing to vote is failing to share responsibility for the future of this country.

There’s another responsibility that people have shirked this election year — the responsibility to keep our political discourse civil.

Unfortunately, high-stakes campaigns often come down to character assassination in the closing days. This presidential race reached that point a long time ago, and the tenor is poisoning the democratic process. It’s one thing to shun “political correctness,” as Donald Trump claims, and another to descend to name-calling and veiled threats.

In the process, what have our children learned about how to discuss politics?

Yes, we rationalize our choices based on the issues. We cite candidates’ stances and the future direction of the Supreme Court. But many of the letters to the editor published in the Post in recent weeks have been laced with the emotions of fear and hate. At the voter level, the campaign is nearing fever pitch.

Perhaps that feels especially acute this year because North Carolina is a battleground state, teetering on the fence between the opposites of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The barrage of ads is especially heavy. The candidates and their top proxies have criss-crossed the state like never before. The constant chatter has raised anxieties.

Make no mistake. Neither Trump nor Clinton is seeking the presidency for purely altruistic purposes. Anyone willing to undergo the rigors of a 21st century presidential campaign has to possess an outsize craving for power and attention. And both are millionaires far removed from the day-to-day concerns of average people.

But whoever wins the election will be our nation’s president. That person has to take responsibility for the turn our civic discourse has taken and set out to change it. That’s the first step toward breaking the gridlock and dysfunction that have gripped the U.S. Congress.

The National Institute for Civil Discourse sums up the problem in part of its vision statement:

“Voters are frustrated, worried, and angry with their leaders and ashamed of how our political process works these days. Heated rhetoric and a dramatic shift away from bipartisan collaboration pervade national politics, leaving us unable to solve the major challenges confronting our nation.”

The institute was formed after a 2011 Tucson mass shooting killed six and seriously wounded Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. Rabid politics that are just words to most people can strike the wrong nerve in someone who is unstable and violent, and that leads to tragedy.

On a broader scale, there’s the tragedy of this great nation’s political paralysis. Too many of our elected representatives and senators are more dedicated to rancor than results. If we don’t raise the level of discourse — if we accept a coarser level of discourse and refuse to show respect for other opinions — the anxiety and fears of campaign 2016 are precursors of worse things to come.