This election year has proved to be one of the most monumental campaigns for all the men and women running for presidency in November. Most of the media is only covering the main contenders from the two major parties, most namely, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and of course, Donald Trump. These three major candidates, along with a few Republican nominees that have already dropped from the race, have had numerous hours of media coverage and continue to argue about the same issues over and over. Many of the people I know have referred to this presidential election as a “terrible game of would you rather." However, what many Americans forget is that there are actually more candidates than the few from the two major parties. One in particular who I just recently found out about is Jill Stein.

Jill Stein is running as the Green Party presidential nominee. She has run for presidency before and holds the record for the most votes for a woman in a presidential election. Her views are very progressive and has realistic goals for our society to improve. She has been an activist for environmental, social and economic justice, fighting for equality for all people and working toward better, cleaner energy for our society to run on. She has worked alongside nonprofits and Native Americans to fight for better protection against toxin exposure. She also helped clean up the coal plants in Massachusetts to better protect not only the workers, but also the communities from the harmful toxins they are exposed to from the plant.

She is an advocate for women’s protection and will work to expand women’s rights. She also works to end racism, both blatant and institutional, as well as peace over profit. Her plan for the presidency includes helping our economy by providing a livable minimum wage and mandating fair trade over corporate trade, meaning workers will be paid their rightful amount for the work they do. She plans on breaking up “too-big-to-fail” banks in support of local businesses and furthering a more democratically run banking system. She wants to give the power back to the people (sound familiar?) and advocating for human rights above everything else.

There are a few things I don’t quite agree with in Dr. Stein’s plan, however, I am a firm believer in human rights and I think that her presidency will bring that back into America. Everyone deserves to be treated with the basic rights as human beings, including all races and nationalities, sexual orientation and religious beliefs. I like Dr. Stein because her views do match Bernie Sanders, but she has provided a more realistic goal for better funding education as well as boosting our economy to be better governed by the people rather than big business. I encourage you to look into more candidates than the big three, regardless of what your political views are, so that you are more aware of other options and/or forming your own opinions about what should be done to better the future of our country. It's in our hands.