Angles: Is it worth voting third party?

Over the past few years, a number of — particularly young — voters have expressed renewed interest in voting third party in upcoming elections.

Since the establishment of the two-party system, the United States has not elected a third-party president. Historically speaking, popular third-party candidates tend to draw votes away from Republican or Democratic nominees rather than create opportunities to introduce new ideas to executive leadership. 

Still, there may be other reasons to consider voting third party. 

As many as 63% of Americans, more than ever, are upset with Democratic and Republican representation of their interests, according to a 2023 Gallup poll.

Some argue that voting third party is a way to express their frustrations with the mainstream parties.

Others argue that third party voting still does more harm than good and that those who do so are throwing away their vote.

On the other hand, with the electoral voting system, individual votes in presidential elections can hold very little significance anyway.

As the U.S. political climate grows more and more polarized, politicians become less and less moderate, leaving voters unable to identify with mainline party candidates.

For many, voting third party is the best solution to the current problem, but others still worry it might push more undesirable individuals into positions of power.

Yes, it doesn't make a big difference

Xavier Carbonneau

Too often, when I have told people I will be voting third party in the upcoming presidential elections, I have heard, “You are throwing away your vote,” or worse, “A vote for a third party is a vote for Trump.”

I will concede that the sad reality is third-party candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West will never even come close to winning the presidency. In the entire history of the United States, no third-party candidate has ever won a presidential election, and since 1968, third-party candidates haven’t won a single electoral vote. 

That being said, voting for a third-party candidate is no more pointless than voting for anyone else.

In South Dakota, a state that will invariably give its electoral votes to whatever Republican presidential candidate is on the ballot, the odds that your vote will decide the presidency are about one in three billion. It is far more likely that you yourself will someday become president. 

Even in key battleground states, the odds your vote decides the next president are less than one in a million. Whether voting for a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian or Socialist president, it is highly unlikely your vote will have any effect.

Voting in a presidential election then should not be seen as a vain personal effort to make a national governmental change, but as an expression of one’s values and fidelity to a cause one believes in. Some may want to be part of a group choosing the lesser of two evils, making the world a marginally better place. Others may want to support a third-party candidate who more closely aligns with their true beliefs. Neither choice is wrong.

Naive optimists might say that voting third party will lead to the fall of the two-party system. More realistic voters may hope that voting third party will sway Democrats or Republicans slightly left or right in hopes of gaining third-party voters’ support. This seems more possible but still unlikely with the way our voting system is set up, so candidates only need the most votes, not the majority of votes. 

These arguments aren’t really important to me, though. Your vote will never change who wins the presidency, so do with it as you will. More important than any presidential vote is carefully considering local elections where one can really make a difference and full-ballot voting, at least in races one feels confidently informed about.

No, third-party voting is not worth it

Jack Erickson

Voting between two candidates is hardly a democracy — anyone should be allowed to vote for whomever they choose. In the presidential election, though, voting for a third-party or write-in candidate only takes away votes from the primary Democrat and Republican candidates and doesn’t actually result in the installation of optimistic third-party candidates.

With an already extreme dichotomy between the major opposing parties, voting for a median, third-party candidate seems more appealing to many.

The 1856 election between James Buchanan and John C. Fremont marked the first presidential election between a Democratic and Republican candidate. Since then, either a Democrat or a Republican has taken a majority of the electoral votes and been sworn in as the president — never has a third-party candidate won the presidency.

Before then, popular American parties included the Nationalist Republican, Democratic-Republican, Whig and Federalist parties. Even then, one of the two majority parties of those elections always won — excluding the nonpartisan, independent George Washington.

It’s interesting to me, then, why anyone would choose to vote for third-party candidates in the presidency, knowing that over the course of 59 elections, a third-party candidate has never won.

I’ve heard people say they will vote third party because their views align independent, green or constitution, the three most popular American political parties behind the Democratic and Republican majorities. 

For me, I could never vote third party knowing the history of presidential elections for third-party candidates. I want my vote to matter, and if I have to choose between one of two candidates, which I agree is not a democracy, then I want to have a say in who. Voting for a candidate other than the majority Democrat or Republican feels wasteful, even if my beliefs align more with the political minority. 

I’ve also heard people say they vote third party because they don’t like either major Democratic or Republican candidate. 

In the 2016 election between Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton, for instance, I recall a lot of rhetoric of “choosing the lesser of two evils,” where votes were cast not because of an alignment with one candidate but out of disdain for the other. 

In these cases, voting for third-party candidates to avoid having to vote for either majority candidate feels like a throw-away vote, only further dichotomizing the ratio of Republican to Democratic votes. 

It comes as no surprise that this election is a pivotal one, which could lead to new horizons in social justice, economics, international relations and environmental justice. It is more important than ever to vote in the upcoming election on issues that matter to you. But if we are wanting to make serious changes from recent years, voting third party is not the way to do it.