Is Voting Third Party a Privilege?
By: Keara Lou
Tags: Politics, Voting, Ideas, Elections, Election 2020

Is Voting Third Party a Privilege?

Or are we being conditioned to fall in line?

Photo by Morning Brew on Unsplash

I don’t always scroll through Twitter. But when I do, I linger on the political posts.

I follow a guy on Twitter called Secular Talk. Often, he talks about how the Democrats choosing Biden makes him want to vote third party. I’m not opposed to it. I saw the occasional “A vote for the third party is a vote for Trump!” comments, but a few other comments jumped out.

There were a surprising number of people calling him privileged for voting third party.

I, like Secular Talk, don’t like Joe Biden. I think Biden is a lazy choice, only playing the “I’m not Trump Card.” I also think he’s a dangerous choice because I don’t think he’s changed his views on abortion rights as he claims.

I also get frustrated because I don’t know why we can’t vote third party. If I don’t like either candidate, why can’t I vote for someone from another party? If the candidates were so strong, the two main parties wouldn’t be screaming at us to fall in line. They wouldn’t have to worry because we would vote for their candidates.

Am I showing my privilege for wanting to vote third party? If it is a privilege to vote third party, why? Or am I being gaslit to keep my choice between Palpatine and Voldemort?

The controversy behind voting for a third party candidate

For anyone that’s voted third party, they can tell you how elections run for them. If voters are brave enough to admit they want to vote third party, other people act like they kicked a puppy. When elections happen, and a candidate no one likes wins the election, the people swarm the third-party voter and say it’s their fault the favorite candidate didn’t win.

We saw this attitude in 2016 when Trump won the election. Most Hilary voters viciously attacked anyone voting for the third party candidates.

Nobody mentioned the low voter turnout. The 2016 elections had the lowest voter turnout in 20 years. Yet, the third-party voters were more viciously attacked than the non-voters.

It still doesn’t answer my questions. Third-party candidates were around since the first American presidential elections. All they do is take away some of the popular vote. That doesn’t mean they directly affect the Electoral vote.

It’s not the popular vote that wins the election but the Electoral. Most of the time, the Electoral votes stand with the popular votes, but there are times when it doesn’t. That’s when the third-party hate is at its fiercest.

Though with the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on electoral votes, I’ll be curious to see how that affects this election and future elections.

Why do some people believe voting for a third party is a privilege?

In 2016, 30 percent of young voters planned on voting third party. Most of these young voters were white. Nonwhite voters were more likely to stay with the two main parties.

The group that’s least likely to be affected by the outcome of any election is straight white male Christian voters. In Madison 365, Robert Chappell writes that the worst a Trump presidency would be to him was “moderately annoying.”

To me personally, a Donald Trump presidency would be … moderately annoying. I’d roll my eyes at the cowboy bluster he calls “foreign policy.” I’d be irritated that rich people get more tax breaks than I do. I’d take to Facebook to denounce the right-wing justices he appoints to the Supreme Court, ultimately knowing that their decisions won’t have that much effect on me personally, since I’m a middle-class, straight white American Christian man.

Chappel isn’t wrong. He sees voting for a third party as the “height of white privilege.” No matter who he voted for, the election results and the policies of any president wouldn’t have much of an effect on his life.

Why wouldn’t it be a privilege?

No matter how people vote, they’re still going out and voting. There are people of all races, genders, and ages dissatisfied with the mainstream candidates and vote for a third party to make their voices heard.

People scoff and warn us we’re wasting our vote. However, without these third party candidates, the United States would be a different country than it is now.

Without third-party candidates, we wouldn’t have social security, labor rights, and privatization ideas. Though third-party candidates don’t win elections, they plant the seeds for change in future elections. They help evolve the two main parties.

Third-party candidates have more of an impact than we give them credit for. If an idea you like gets adopted by a winning candidate, how can it possibly be a wasted vote?

It’s a risky thought. There is no guarantee a winning candidate would take the third party’s idea. But it could plant the seed for future generations.

Conclusion

I don’t see voting third party as a form of privilege. I see it as more of a vote of defiance when two political parties are screaming at you to fall in line. But I can understand how people can see voting third party as a form of privilege.

The 2016 elections saw a surge in third-party votes. Democrats and Republicans weren’t expecting their frontrunners to be so unpopular. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more third party votes this election than in 2016. I can’t see Biden being more likable than Hilary.

I haven’t decided who I’m voting for yet. At this point, I’d vote for a deodorant stick if it meant Trump got voted out of office. But if I do vote third party, and Biden does somehow win, I hope Biden adopts an idea from the third party candidates.