Learn Hardcore Spanish (Latin America): Es importante informarse antes de votar. - It is important to get informed before voting.

informar = to inform (someone else)
- El gobierno informa a la población. – The government informs the population.
informarse = to get informed / to inform oneself
- Es importante informarse. – It’s important to get informed.

In your sentence, the idea is that people themselves should seek information, not that they should inform someone else. That’s why the reflexive form informarse is used.

What exactly does the se in informarse do here?

The se is a reflexive pronoun. It indicates that the action of the verb comes back to the same person:

informar = to inform
informarse = to inform oneself → to get informed

Grammatically, se is attached to the infinitive informar to form the reflexive infinitive informarse.
It doesn’t refer to a specific person here; it’s a general “oneself” or “yourself/ourselves/people in general” depending on the context.

Why is it es importante informarse and not es importante se informar?

In Spanish, with an infinitive verb, the reflexive pronoun normally goes:

attached to the end of the infinitive: informarse
or before a conjugated verb: se informa, se informó, etc.

You cannot put the pronoun between es importante and the infinitive. So:

✅ Es importante informarse.
❌ Es importante se informar.

If you change the structure and conjugate the verb, then the pronoun moves:

Es importante que la gente se informe.

Why is the structure es importante + infinitive used, instead of es importante que…?

Both structures are possible, but they’re used slightly differently.

Es importante + infinitive
- Es importante informarse antes de votar.
- Literally: “It is important to get informed…”
- General, impersonal statement. No specific subject is mentioned.
Es importante que + subjunctive
- Es importante que la gente se informe antes de votar.
- Literally: “It is important that people get informed…”
- Now there’s a clear subject (la gente, tú, ellos, etc.), and the verb after que goes in the subjunctive (se informe).

In your sentence, the speaker is making a general statement, so the infinitive construction is more natural and simpler.

Who is the subject of es importante in this sentence?

Grammatically, this is an impersonal construction. There is no concrete subject like I, you, or they.

Es importante functions like English “It’s important”, where “it” doesn’t really refer to anything concrete.
The action is expressed by the infinitive: informarse (antes de votar).

So you can think of it as:
(Impersonal “it”) is important [to get informed before voting].

Why is votar in the infinitive and not conjugated like votas or votamos?

After a preposition in Spanish, you almost always use the infinitive, not a conjugated verb. Here the preposition is de (part of antes de):

antes de + infinitive → antes de votar

So:

✅ antes de votar – before voting
❌ antes de votas – incorrect
❌ antes de votemos – incorrect here (unless you change the whole structure, see next answer)

Also, the infinitive here works in a general way: “before (people) vote” / “before voting”.

Why is it antes de votar and not antes votar? What does de do?

Antes by itself is usually an adverb (“before”), but when you want to follow it with a verb in the infinitive, you use the preposition de:

antes de + infinitive → antes de votar

Compare:

antes de comer – before eating
antes de salir – before leaving

Without de, the phrase sounds incomplete or incorrect:

❌ antes votar
✅ antes de votar

When do you use antes de votar vs antes de que vote/votes/votemos?

Use antes de + infinitive when:

The subject is general or the same as the main one.
You want a simpler structure.

Example:

Es importante informarse antes de votar.
– General: before (one) votes / before voting.

Use antes de que + subjunctive when:

You introduce a full clause with its own subject.
You specifically mention who is going to do the second action.

Examples:

Es importante informarse antes de que la gente vote.
Infórmate bien antes de que votemos.

So:

antes de votar = “before voting” (verb as a noun-like form)
antes de que + subjunctive = “before (someone) votes” (full clause)

Could I say Es importante estar informado antes de votar instead of informarse? Is there a difference?

Yes, you can, and there’s a slight nuance difference:

informarse = to get informed, to go and seek information.
Focus on the process of informing yourself.
estar informado = to be informed.
Focus on the result/state of having information.

So:

Es importante informarse antes de votar.
– It’s important to go and look for information before voting.
Es importante estar informado antes de votar.
– It’s important to be in an informed state before voting.

In many contexts, both are fine and very close in meaning.

How would I make the sentence more explicitly about “you” (tú)?

You can add te to make it clearly directed at tú:

Es importante que te informes antes de votar.
– “It’s important that you get informed before voting.”

Or, still using the infinitive:

Es importante informarte antes de votar.
– “It’s important to get yourself informed before voting.”

Both are correct. The version with que te informes is more explicit about the subject and slightly more formal; informarte is shorter and quite natural in speech.

Can I change the word order and start with Antes de votar?

Yes, Spanish word order is flexible here. Both are correct:

Es importante informarse antes de votar.
Antes de votar, es importante informarse.

Moving antes de votar to the beginning just changes the emphasis slightly, highlighting the time condition first, but the meaning stays the same.

Is this sentence specifically “Latin American Spanish,” or would it sound different in Spain?

This sentence is perfectly natural in both Latin American Spanish and Peninsular (Spain) Spanish.

Es importante informarse antes de votar.

There’s no regional vocabulary or grammar here that would mark it as one variety or the other. Both informarse and votar are standard everywhere.