For many of you, this is your first opportunity to vote in a presidential election, and you may be struggling with your options.
If you are not enthusiastic about electing either Bush or Kerry as our next president, consider your third party options. Many people contend that a third party vote is a wasted vote.
To them, I present the following scenario:
You have a 50 percent chance of having your leg cut off, a 40 percent chance of having your arm cut off, or a 10 percent chance of losing no limbs. Do you vote to lose your arm because you want to save your leg? Do you vote to lose your leg because it is more likely to happen? Or do you vote to save your limbs?
Not voting to save your limbs makes little sense – as does not voting your conscience. Third parties usually form in order to voice concern about a single issue on which the two main parties are not focused. For this reason, the success of third parties is often tied to the universal appeal of that pet cause.
Ralph Nader and the Green Party returned 2.74 percent of the popular vote in the last presidential election with an environmentally-focused platform. As a third party, the Republican Party had great success in the 1856 election when John Fremont ran for president with a platform focused on the abolition of slavery. Fremont won 33.1 percent of the popular vote and established the party as more than a third party choice.
Although there is historical precedent for third parties to triumph, third party voters must reconcile themselves to the fact that their candidate will probably not be elected.
Therefore, the aim of third parties often is to get enough votes so that the party and its associated platform can gain credibility and change the focus of the two major parties. The Reform Party accomplished this goal and disbanded earlier this year after both major political parties had co-opted much of their platform.
Voting for a third party requires work. Because many of these parties do not invest heavily in mass media messages, you must take an active role in educating yourself about the parties, candidates and platforms. Through this, you can discover the party with which your values most closely align.
Once you have chosen a candidate, the voting process can also be a challenge. Unlike the two major parties, your candidate may not appear on your state ballot on Election Day. Each state has different protocols on how to vote for a third party candidate, but most involve writing or typing in your vote.
There are many third parties vying for awareness and your vote, but four are moving toward a national presence by running candidates in local and national races across the country.
These parties are formally recognized by the Federal Election Commission as national political parties and are backing presidential candidates in the upcoming election.
The following are short excerpts from the each party’s Web site to provide a partial overview of their respective platforms.
Even if these parties do not appeal to you, there are many more parties you can research and involve yourself with. The most important thing is for you make your vote count, no matter who you vote for.
* GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES (www.gp.org)
Candidates: David Cobb andPat LaMarche.
Committed to environmentalism, non-violence, social justice and grassroots organizing, Greens are renewing democracy without the support of corporate donors. Whether the issue is universal health care, corporate globalization, alternative energy, election reform or decent living wages for workers, Greens have the courage and independence necessary to take on the powerful corporate interests.
* LIBERTARIAN PARTY (www.lp.org)
Candidates: Michael Badnarik and Richard Campagna
The members of the Libertarian Party challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual. They hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose. People should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market.
* CONSTITUTION PARTY (www.constitutionparty.com)
Candidates: Michael A. Peroutka and Chuck Baldwin
The Constitution Party works to restore our government to its constitutional limits and our law to its Biblical foundation. The Constitution Party is the only party completely pro-life, anti-homosexual rights, pro-American sovereignty, anti-globalist, anti-free trade, anti-deindustrialization, anti-unchecked immigration, pro-Second Amendment, and against the constantly increasing expansion of unlawful police laws, in favor of a strong national defense and opposed to unconstitutional interventionism.
* SOCIALIST PARTY (www.sp-usa.org)
Candidates: Walt Brown and Mary Alice Herbert
The Socialist Party stands for the abolition of every form of domination and exploitation, whether based on social class, gender, race or ethnicity, sexual orientation, or other characteristics. It is committed to the transformation of capitalism through the creation of a democratic socialist society. Socialism will establish a new social and economic order, in which workers and consumers will take responsibility for production, and residents will take responsibility for and control of their homes, schools, and local government.
~ Lisa Boe is a Loyola alumnae and part-time instructor for the communications department.
