me and some of my friends are actually going to try to put together a local election campaign and run 3rd party.

I do actually believe in voting on principle - I know our 2-party system is lame, but it's a hell of a lot better than the 1-party system that a lot of the world lives with. This is why I always force myself to vote for someone, because even if I feel a certain level of despair about the current climate, NOT voting sounds like the ultimate form of defeatism.

Having said that, I'm almost certainly going to vote 3rd party this time around, for the simple cowardly reason that I live in a Democrat-dominated state and my vote isn't going to sway the election one way or another anyway. So no matter who wins, I'll be able to say "don't blame me, I voted for ____!" :)

Using your presidential vote for a 3rd party is worse than not voting. Bush won in 2000 because of votes for the Green party candidate. Most of those people would have had much more in common with Gore, but instead we got W. I'll be voting against Trump because one of my main voting goals is to avoid opening the 7th seal of the apocalypse.

Third party. I don't like any candidate on either side so I am fairly certain that is what I will be doing. Your vote will not swing the election one way or the other so might as well just increase the total amount of votes your third party candidate will receive to help build momentum for that party going forward into the future.

Patburu: Or seeing as he's going to be the Republican nominee anyway, how about voting for Bernie? Seeing as you mention Nader, it sounds like you have much more in common with Sanders than any other candidate. Plus, Bernie is much better positioned than Hillary is to beat Donald in a general election.

biophil and Manwe Sulimo: When delegates are split proportionally, your vote actually matters a lot. Don't waste it. You can still vote for a third party in the general election if you don't like the candidate you get.

KingCyrus: What issue is most important to you this campaign season?

Voting third party for a candidate that has zero chance of winning is the intellectual equivalent of "Waahhhh..... I'm taking my ball and going home...." Because YOU didn't get exactly what toy wanted. It's childish. Further, given that, with a gun to your head you would favor one candidate over the other, it denies both YOU and the electorate your actual voice in the decision, which is the height of selfishness.

You don't like the candidates? Well what the hell did you do BEFORE now to influence the election? Its no surprise what is happening, and since there a 90% chance you are a democrat voter (this is aWebDip forumn...) have you ACTIVELY supported someone else because this Hillary candidacy has been coming for years, so feigning surprise is hardly courageous or genuine.

JECE: I was referring only to the general election in November in my previous post. I have already voted in the Primary for the candidate I dislike the least. Now I just have to wait for the general election to vote for my third party :).

@JECE, I'm not really sure what my most important issue is in *this* election, because I'm not too sure how the POTUS will influence that.

@krellin, firstly, I am not a Democrat, I'm a right leaning independent. And while I understand that my first choice (or any choice at that matter) third party has a 0% chance of winning *this* election, I do hope that more people voting third party will bring legitimacy to it which will hopefully topple the idea that you have to vote for either the R's or the D's - neither of which I like, especially in this election,

https://youtu.be/rAT_BuJAI70

"Right leaning independent" - code word for "I've never voted Republican but an too ashamed to admit I only vote Democrat", sane as Bo and all the other " moderate " frauds, I'm sure...

You want a third party, that whole 2% of the vote tour candidate gets will do EXACTLY nothing. Good god, moron, EVERY election year various third party candidates "get votes". How's that working out so far for third parties? Get real.

Ta Party IS a " third party " movement dine correctly - it infiltrated the Republican party at the primary level and moved actual Republicans out. Bernie is a third party candidate.

As I said, your juvenile "I'LL SHOW THEM!!!! I'M VOTING 3RD PARTY!" will do exactly nothing to advance your cause.

And... I guarantee you have some nothing before now to make a difference... Didn't research a candidate, support a movement, etc. Hell... You can't even say what issues are important to you.... But we are supposed to be worried that you might throw your vote away???

Lol. Idiot. Sorry, don't mean to be insulting, but you truly are a typical self-absorbed jackass, and I'm putting $10 on the guess you are a "Mellenial".

Vote Gary Johnson. or Gary Oldman. Idk somebody named gary. more on this later

I suggest the first step is the abolition of all political parties.

Yes TrPrado is an abolishionist.

I thought this thread was "Viking Strategy". I read wrong

Krellin, the stereotypes are not doing you any favors today... You are correct that I have never voted Republican, but guess what? Never voted Democrat before either. In fact, haven't actually voted at the federal level at all, because I couldn't before now. So go fuck yourself.

Reading through your typos, I think you mean to say that I "haven't done anything." Well, it's true that I haven't joined a campaign team, but I've done my fair share of research. I was hoping for a Rubio or Kasich to win the Republican nomination - I could probably vote for one of them. But, with the God-awful candidates we will likely have, I can't really support either of them.

As to issues, I have my mind firmly made up, so excuse me if I don't gush to tell you all about it. Somehow I think you'll survive without knowing my political thoughts. My primary concern is pro-life, but the President has a limited amount of power over this area - except when it comes to appointing Supreme Court justices. But, neither Trump nor Bernie/Clinton are pro-life, so that point is moot. (Trump "says" he is pro-life, but his history says otherwise).

TrPrado: Why? So that lobbyists have even more power or so that you can found a democracy along the lines of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya?

Lobbyists already have power over political parties. Abolishing them would simply give an individual the option to either cave to the money/lobbyists/corporatocracy or stand up against them without having to fear backlash from their own party. It would allow individual representatives to instead worry about what their constituents think instead of what their party thinks their constituents think.

And considering that we already have a fairly stable political system, there is approximately 0.00% chance that we will have a state similar to Libya any time soon regardless of what policies we enact as a nation.

Obviously that's not my only reform, but it's a key point. Elections should be funded publicly and the amount of money received from private contributions should be capped.

I would mostly just like politicians to be loyal to something other than a party and serve the interest of the state above a party institution.

Side note: I definitely don't honestly expect this to happen, especially any time soon.

KingCyrus: Well what is that issue?

TrPrado: Well public financing of elections is certainly possible sometime soon.

Overturning Citizens United would make it much more plausible.

bo_sox48: I mentioned the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya because it is one of the few constitutional orders to have abolished political parties. There wasn't a benevolent motive behind that ban.

And it's the politicians themselves that get bribed, influenced or threatened by corporate power, etc.. The party machinery itself does not have a very effective whip in the States.

The party machine in the United States is in the midst of being overthrown, so you're right. If that machine doesn't expand to encompass minor parties (thereby making them major), then it will never survive anyway.

You should vote for whom you want to be president.

As a general note, by the way, voting for third parties can be a powerful tool in states of the Union which allow fusion voting. Only a handful of states allow fusion voting, though.