After surviving a contentious election, it can be important to remember why we put ourselves through all this every four years nationally and even more often locally. Our votes go toward two of the three branches of government directly, but they also affect the third branch equally, if not as directly. The less-affected is the judicial branch, which includes the United States Supreme Court and other federal courts. The judicial branch is responsible for interpreting laws, applying them to individual cases and deciding if they violate our Constitution, according to usa.gov. The justices on the supreme court are appointed by the sitting president to lifetime appointments and are vetted and approved by the Senate. If the Supremes Court decide a law is unconstitutional, the legislative branch has the option to rewrite the law to comply with the Constitution or amend the Constitution in order to reflect massive changes in society. Some of the important rulings that the Supreme Court has ruled on include Roe v. Wade, which kept abortion legal, and Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that public school segregation based on race was unconstitutional.