(I found the flaw in my logic: The third party candidates would actually have to win states. Still an interesting thought....)
The 2016 election is a crazy critter. Never before have I seen so much against both candidates. #NeverHillary and #NeverTrump are attached to about every post that I see anymore. It has been a totally negative campaign on all sides. Neither candidate seems like anybody that we would want to have leading our country.
Since I run in conservative circles, I have run into 3 options: Close my eyes and plug my nose and vote for Trump and wash it down quickly with a glass of water, don't vote, or find a third party candidate that I can support. What has been interesting to me is that Don't Vote has ranked significantly higher from most people above the Third Party option - and mathematically this makes zero sense.
There are a few reasons why I feel that a Third Party is a viable option especially this year.
First off, there is a debate as to whether or not a Third Party candidate has ever won the election, but let's look at the one case: Abraham Lincoln. So the argument goes that at the time of Lincoln, the Democrats and the Whigs were the two parties. History says that the Whig party was in the middle of a collapse and the Republican Party and the Constitutional Party were formed out of it. Well, if you look closely, the Democrats were split too - into the north and the south. So there was no strong party at all. I would say that this is actually really similar to today. If the best candidate that the Republican party can come up with is Trump and the best candidate that the Democrat Party can come up with is Clinton, both parties are failing. The only reason why they are called Republican and Democrat is that those are the two parties that people can rally behind. I would say that if a Third Party candidate actually won this election, history would record the same thing about our time in history: It was the collapse of either the Republican or the Democrat Parties.
Now, something interesting that has come to light in the last few weeks has actually driven me to decide to actually post about it: The Twelfth Amendment. Simply stated, if neither candidate can get a majority, the vote goes to the House - split between the top 3 candidates. Now the last I have seen, neither candidate is sitting at a majority. Also, the House currently has a Republican Majority. And so the logic of "a vote for a Third Party candidate is a vote for Her" suddenly falls. Also, the logic of "Not Voting is the best option" falls.
This year more than ever before is the year to vote Third Party. If you are holding your nose while you vote for Trump, if you vote for a Third Party, worst case scenario, the Third Party might split the Republicans, but as long as Clinton doesn't have a majority, the vote falls to the House and Trump gets elected. The trick is to keep Clinton under 50% - and we do that not by voting for Trump, but by voting!
And if the third party candidate wins, then America wins!