This year, voters will be making a choice not only between President Barack Obama and candidate Mitt Romney, but the more experienced but traditionally gaffe-prone Joe Biden and the youthful, but sometimes accused of being untruthful, Paul Ryan. 

However, just because the vice-presidential debates do not receive as much coverage as the presidential ones, does not mean that they can be taken lightly--in past years, this debate has given some candidates a chance to show their qualifications, or attempt to redeem themselves like Sarah Palin in 2008.

According to Ange-Marie Hancock, associate professor of Political Science and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California, this debate gives voters a chance to see vice presidential candidates as potential heirs to the office of the presidency.

"Voters are judging the vice presidential candidate (on) him or herself, with the question, 'If elected, is this person qualified to step in as president should something happen," Hancock said.

Patrick James, professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California, says that the vice presidential debate is less for the V.P. candidates and more for attacks on the presidential ones.

"No one, with very little exception, will vote for a ticket because of the vice presidential candidate," said James. "The candidates will spend most of their time attacking the other side's presidential candidate."

And while debates "generally do not swing an election definitively," a debate is often important because it showcases the talents or importance of a vice presidential choice, Hancock said.

"In the recent past, selections [of the Vice President] have been used to shore up what are perceived to be deficiencies in presidential candidates' perceptions," Hancock said. "For example, Obama chose Biden, someone with a lot of experience and well older than him because the knock on Obama was his relative youth and inexperience. McCain and Romney both chose someone considerably more conservative than they are ideologically because they were perceived as needing something to excite their voter blocs."

After a lackluster performance by Obama and the bump that Romney has received post-presidential debate, it will be up to the vice presidential candidates to either re-excite or maintain a fire within their respective constituencies, according to James. 

"If Obama had won the first debate, nobody would be watching the V.P. debates right now," James said. "That last debate went so well for the Republicans, the race will be even by the time [the V.P. debates happen]. "