Do you want to see third party voting through my eyes? No? Then skip this.
Come election time, if you are a U.S. citizen, your choices can be divided into three
bins: you can 1)vote for a
republocrat, 2) vote for a
third party, or 3)vote for noone.
If you think that one of the "
major party" candidates is the best
sack of water for president, then your choice is easy. If you believe that one is evil incarnate, and the other is not, you might also want to vote for the electoral college candidate who has indicated he would vote for the lesser of the two evils. If neither of these is the case, which for me it usually is, then you must decide what to do.
If you choose option 1, you are supporting a person you believe will not be the best president. However, what if 50% of voters chose option 3? That means that the president could be elected, possibly with less support than
Milosevic got in the recent elections in
Yugoslavia! And, since both of the major parties can count on certain blocks, that means that
whatever special interest you hate gets a disproportionate voice in electing your leader.
Let us now look at option 2. If your vote truly is wasted, option 2 becomes option 3. But what if many people voted #2? What if 20% of americans spread their votes between the third parties? Would
Nader have been forcibly denied entrance to the presidential debates? What if it were 40%? The problem is, a revolution can only come when many individuals come together. Let me give one example.(you can skip it if you're bored)
I went to high school in a conservative part of the country that has cold, snowy winters. One year, my school decided that students could not wear shorts that left more than two inches showing above the kneecaps. However, the policy said nothing about skirts(
why are conservative policies so often drafted by dirty old men?). Students, and a few parents, complained, but to no avail. Then, on the day of the first major
snow of the year, about 10% of the boys came to school in short skirts, in protest of the rule. Now, there was a long-standing rule against cross-dressing, but with about 5% of the student body participating, the administration caved in. We're talking about maybe 80 people. That's it. But we were 80 people, and
we made a difference.
So, if you are disgusted with
G.W. Gush and Al Bore, vote for a third party candidate. Or become a part of the
evil machine.