Sitting in my Presidential Honors Program seminar late one Wednesday night, our beloved professor opened the class period, as he did every Wednesday, by asking us what’s going on in the world or in our lives. Followed by a few announcements about happenings on campus came comments about Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. To all of us in this program at our private liberal arts college, Donald Trump’s campaign was a joke. A group of young liberals laughed in disgust whenever we discussed Trump’s inability to answer questions directly, his lack of talents and skills needed to run our country, or how it was unbelievable that he was leading the polls for the Republican party. Yet, the very idea of an America run by Donald Trump made us shutter. Imagining a world where our country, which is pretty successful (but still not the best in the world), is run by an unsuccessful businessman who knows nothing of politics and government was (and still is) absolutely terrifying.

As honors students who are really active in causes around campus, conversation about the need to vote came up quite a bit in our semester-long seminar. The presidential primaries for Michigan arrived in March, and you can bet that various organizations on Alma’s campus were encouraging all students to vote. Vote, vote, vote, regardless of who you’re voting for. (Although it’d be preferred if you didn’t vote for Trump.) Tables to register to vote were even in our cafeteria’s lobby, since, of course, all college students need to eat. Although I don’t know for sure what the success rate was of the registration tables, I can attest to the fact that on voting day for the primaries, everyone was asking each other if they’d voted yet today, and I mean everyone. It was the talk of campus that day. Our spirit rock was painted, people wore their “I voted!” stickers proudly, and on Facebook, everyone was letting their friends know they’d participated in primary day.

Let me stress that, above all, it is both important and necessary that you vote. If you are of legal age, get registered. Every single vote matters. (Don’t believe me? Look at how close some of the primary results were.) Although I’d be more than happy to encourage you who to vote for, many of you who know me also know where my allegiances lie anyway, so there’s not really a huge need to discuss it here, nor do I want to push my political agenda on you in any way. You have the right to your opinion, but so do I.

Speaking of opinions, I have one to share now that you may not like, but here it is.

In the upcoming November election for presidential candidates, DO NOT VOTE FOR A THIRD PARTY.

That’s right. I said it. And here’s why:

1) You don’t want a country run by Donald Trump.

2) That’s it.

Voting for a third party will make the possibility of Donald Trump’s selfish dream of becoming president more likely than you can imagine. I understand that lots of younger people, millennials, etc., were really rooting for Bernie Sanders. He is still a potential presidential candidate for the Democratic party. (If you’d like to contest that, just look it up. His backing of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee doesn’t mean he can’t still become president. Candidates from the same party can support each other but still end up winning the official nomination at the convention. See here FDR.) Now many who are pissed at Bernie for supporting Hillary are talking about wanting to vote for Independent Party candidate Jill Stein. (For those of you who don’t know, Bernie identifies as a member of the Independent Party but knew, like any smart man would, that to even have a chance at the presidency he would have to run as a democrat, and it’s clearly been working.)

But voting for Jill Stein, writing Bernie’s name in on the ballot, writing your neighbor’s name on the ballot as a joke, or just not voting are all effectively votes for Donald Trump. I would love to believe that it’s possible that someday, we could have a president who comes from the Independent party, but the fact of the matter is that we, America, have a controlling, dominating two-party system that none of us will ever in our lifetimes be able to buck unless we were to experience the downfall of our government and have to start all over again. (Which is likely if Donald Trump is our president.) Even if you, your best friend, and a hundred other people you know are planning to vote Independent, and you have friends online who say they’re going to vote similarly, it will unfortunately never be enough to make a difference; the same is true for writing Bernie’s name on the ballot if he were to not win the official nomination. (I wish it worked that way.)

Our voting system is mathematical, though not too difficult to explain or understand. We all know basic division, so imagine an eight-slice pizza. (Everyone loves pizza.) Theoretically speaking, suppose that our presidential candidates on the November ballots are Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Without a doubt, Donald Trump will likely get close to half of the votes in this country. This means he gets four slices of the pizza, or half of the cheesy goodness. That means that there are only four slices left to distribute to the other candidate – in this case, Hillary Clinton. If Hillary gets four slices (half of the pizza), and Donald Trump gets four slices (the other half of the pizza), then they can compete with each other and someone will end up with more pepperoni than the other one and will win the candidacy.

But if Hillary were to only get three slices, and the last slice went to some other potential candidate like Jill Stein or Bernie Sanders, then NONE OF THEM could compete with Donald Trump. Trump would have half of the pizza, which is the majority, and would win the candidacy. The slices of pizza, or votes, that the other candidates received wouldn’t even matter because it wasn’t enough to compete with Donald Trump. Hillary only has three. Jill Stein or Bernie Sanders have one. Donald Trump has four. It’s that simple.

I understand that many of you who are looking to write in Bernie’s name or vote for Jill Stein if Bernie were to not win the official nomination at the convention want to do so for moral reasons. (Again, believe me when I say that I wish it were possible that doing so would be effective.) Most people don’t trust Hillary Clinton farther than the distance their Wi-Fi router reaches, but when forced to choose between two potential evils, it’s necessary to choose the better option. It comes down to a world run by Donald Trump, full of hate speech and racism and even more escalated gun violence than we’re seeing now, or a world run by Hillary Clinton, who at least isn’t a symbol of bigotry and has experience in government work.

None of us want Donald Trump to be president. We have to work together to ensure that our country doesn’t fall into the hands of someone who only wants to destroy it, and that means third party votes are a no-go.