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This year’s Presidential candidates’ unusually high unfavorability ratings are leading many voters towards minor parties. Should they vote third party or pick the lesser of two evils?
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hen you imagine presidential candidates, do you see candidates calling each other names, getting into Twitter wars and publicly lying? Neither do most Americans. Polling giant Fivethirtyeight stated that presidential candidates have never had such low approval ratings. This gives third party voters more power and more reasons to support third parties than they BY GABRIEL MANTIONE have ever had. Viewpoints writer According to the Washington Post, various polls suggest millennials and leftist Democrats favor a third party candidate over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, and many moderate Republicans are defecting from Republican candidate Donald Trump to a third party. In September, 44 percent of likely voters between the ages of 18 and 34 planned on voting for third party candidates. This gives third party voters more The 44 percent power and more reasons to support of millennial voters leaning third party third parties than they have ever had. strike fear into the heart of Clinton. During a speech at Temple University in September, Clinton told the young crowd, “I need you. Not voting is not an option. That just plays into Trump’s hands. It really does.” That desperation gives third party voters significant leverage: during the primary season, Clinton changed her platform to attract Bernie supporters, and will do the same for third party voters she needs on her side to win. Sticking with a third party gives voters power to influence major party platforms. Most states are typically very predictable. Democrats have won California the last six presidential elections, and Republicans have won Texas the last five presidential elections. Similarly, according to Fivethirtyeight, Trump has a 99.9 percent chance to win Oklahoma, and Clinton has a 99.9 percent chance to win Maryland. If you’re in a Elections should not be about blue state voting Republican, you’re choosing the lesser of two evils. not doing your party any good and wasting your vote. You can do good by voting third party and letting your voice be heard. Parties, candidates and legislators will pay more attention to an unusual spike in third party voters in California from the Good Old Party (GOP) defectors than from the usual Republican minority. Elections should be about choosing the candidate that will best represent your beliefs. Elections should not be about choosing the lesser of two evils. Do not feel bound to your party and dismiss third party as a wasted vote. Title: HEAD TO HEAD: From left are homages to the logos of Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson and Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton. Viewpoints writer Gabriel Mantione argues voting for Stein and Johnson Title Illustration by Katy Mayfield
NOVEMBER 2016
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our favorite singer is up for a viewer’s choice award. The race is between three people: your favorite, a musician you like pretty well (who has 35 votes) and human scum you’d like to deprive of any award-based satisfaction (who has 45 votes). Your fave, however, is only picking up a small portion of the vote (20 votes); the real contest is between the artist you bop your head to BY KATY MAYFIELD occasionally and the aforementioned real-life villain. Viewpoints Editor You and like-minded voters can either vote for your guy on blind faith that maybe he’ll experience a last-minute huge surge in voting, or for the OK artist, to deprive the scum of the crown. What do you do? This year, up to half of millennials are taking the blind-faith route and voting for a third party candidate. If they want to prevent the worst musician this country has ever seen from taking office, they cannot afford the luxury of blind faith. That’s because, much like the viewer’s choice awards, our electoral system provides for something called the “spoiler effect”: the electoral impact of a minor candidate drawing votes away from a major candidate with similar ideology. In the people’s choice example, if those 20 voters in question choose their favorite musician, that one ends up with 20 votes, the OK musician ends up with 35, and the terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad one wins with 45. Despite the fact that the majority of voters dislike him, your least-favorite contestant ends up winning because his opposition Voters cannot afford the luxury of was split by your favorite, the spoiler blind faith. candidate and you lose faith in the musical-democratic process. Had voters like you done the math and defensively thrown support behind the least objectionable mainstream candidate, that one would have beat the other one with 55 votes. This election features two very talented spoilers: Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein. According to a September Quinnipiac poll, 44 percent of millennials are voting for one of them this November. Because that age group now comprises 31 percent of the voting population, that phenomenon will have extremely serious ramifications on the electoral math. If potentially-third-party voters-- including millennials-- stick with third parties, they could inadvertently “spoil” the race, putting Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump in office. In a normal election, “voting (one’s) conscience” would make perfect sense as a means of political protest and having underrepresented voices heard. However, this is no normal election. With one of two major party candidates being a xenophobe who vows to deport or ban millions of people on the basis of their ethnicity and religion, it is the duty of tolerant Americans to do whatever is necessary to prevent his election, for the safety of our Muslim, Mexican and black American brothers and sisters. Even if that means swallowing our pride and picking the lesser of two evils.
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