Hope for Third and Independent Party Candidates?

       The United States is not a country for third and independent party candidates. The Republicans and Democrats have been our two major parties since the 1800's and it does not look like that is going to change anytime soon. There does seem to be a downward trend in the number of votes third and independent party candidates are receiving each year. But this year the Libertarian Party received the highest number of votes in the Presidential election in their history. Candidate Gary Johnson won 1,139,562, approximately two percent, of the votes across the nation. The highest that had ever been achieved before was 921,128, close to one percent, in 1980 by Ed Clark. Johnson got his highest percentage of votes in Alaska, Maine, Montana, New Mexico, and Wyoming. He got his lowest percentage in Alabama, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. Across the nation the Libertarian Party has now achieved qualified party status in five more states.
       There were also some other third party candidates that ran for president this year but they did not fare too well in the election. The fourth runner up Jill Stein of the Green Party received 98,000 votes. The Justice Party's Rocky Anderson won 31,230 votes. And Virgil Goode from the Constitution Party only received 7,800 votes. Compared to the last election votes for third party candidates decreased significantly. In 2008 Independent Ralph Nadar received 672,000 votes, down from the 2.7 million he won in 2000. Bob Barr for the Libertarian Party won 500,000 votes. And the Constitution Party's nominee Chuck Baldwin had won 145,000 votes.
       After learning that approximately thirteen million eligible voters did not go out and vote on Tuesday; I can not help but wonder if there could have been a higher percentage of votes for the third party candidates. I personally knew many people who said if they had voted they would have voted for a third party candidate. The reason many stated they had decided to stay home instead is they knew that the candidate they wanted had no chance in winning the election. I also had people who would have voted for a third party candidate, but instead they voted for one of the two major parties because they did not want the candidate from the other major party to win. Hearing my peers say this upset me tremendously because how is a third party candidate supposed to ever have a chance to win if the people who will vote for them do not go out and do their part? They can only win if we give them our support and go out and mark their name on the ballot. I was sad to see that the numbers for most of the third parties were down, but was ecstatic to see the Libertarian Party's numbers raise compared to last election. I think that if people did their part and believed in our system of election enough, anyone could be voted President and i definitely feel that there is hope for the third and independent parties in the future.
     
     
     
 Sources    

KPCC

IDigital International

Bloomberg Businessweek

The New York Times

The Village Voice Blogs

The Indypendent