You've been standing in line for what feels like a lifetime. You take out your ID and sign the sheet. You take the ballot they hand you, and head to an open booth. You grab the pencil and look down. You work your way through the offices, marking boxes. You come back to that one office you skipped. You don't like either of the two big candidates. You skip the name with the "R", you skip the name with the "D", you cast your vote for the candidate with the "I" or the "Lib" or the "Green". Congratulations! You have just voted third-party.
Anyone who has ever voted has been faced with the same problem-- neither the Republican or the Democratic candidates are ones you'd want to vote for. Often, you can pick the lesser of two evils or you can skip that part of the ballot altogether. Sometimes, you can get lucky and find that there is another candidate for that office, one that is not from either big party. For most of us, that vote wasn't much more than a protest.
That protest vote may mean a little more, this election. The two largest third parties, the Libertarian Party and the Green Party, are both campaigning in force. The Libertarian candidate for President, former governor Gary Johnson, is polling at about 8% nationally. Green Party candidate Jill Stein is attempting to capitalize on the success of Bernie Sanders' "Political Revolution" and make a strong showing this fall by attracting his supporters (Sanders and Stein are similar, ideologically). If she is able to do so (a big "if"), she may perform admirably.
Why does this matter? Our federal government is dysfunctional, and politics is reflecting that. Senators are refusing to fulfil their constitutional duty. Congressfolk are staging sit-ins. People are killing each-other because of race or the color of their uniform. The two major candidates for president are tweeting mean things at each other.
The third parties offer America a change. When candidates from the two major parties face off, the political discussion tends to devolve into name-calling. A third party candidate would force those two to act like leaders. These third-partiers want nothing more than to sell you as to why they ought to be in office, and they will do so by suggesting policy and touting credentials. This will force the other candidates to face those issues, too.
If either Johnson or Stein start to poll at 15%, then they get a seat in the Presidential Debates. At the debate, a third-partier may be able to get the two major candidates to quit insulting each other long enough to actually discuss policy-- a welcome change of pace, in my opinion. Maybe Trump and Hillary's down-ticket compatriots will follow suit, and play a little nicer. Maybe those congressfolk will realize how similar they really are, and work together. One can only dream.
Even if they do not win, Stein and Johnson have the opportunity to redirect the political discussion in the US. The worst case scenario: some issues, that are not often discussed, are brought up. The best possible outcome: American politics is shaken to its core.
