Why I'm Not "Throwing Away" My Vote

I am a proud Republican. But last week, I filled out my absentee ballot and voted for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian presidential candidate.

When I first announced that I planned to vote for a third-party candidate, many of my friends were a little angry. “This may be the most important election of our lives. How can you throw away your vote on a third-party candidate?”

Nearly a quarter of Americans feel that in this election, they support “the candidate they disagree with less,” and bipartisan polarization has long been blamed for this “lesser of two evils” outlook. Indeed, our bipartisan system has divided most political issues to the point where the two party’s views stand in fundamental opposition to each other, leaving no room for compromise. And yet, many of these platforms stand against their party’s smothered philosophy, having been arbitrarily adopted to capture votes by providing an alternative to the other party’s stances. In 1981, Ronald Reagan asserted that the “government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives,” and this principle applies to many Republican party platforms. Yet, while advocating decreased private-sector control and huge government spending cuts, Republicans champion social platforms aiming to control peoples’ decisions. The Democratic Party, meanwhile, compromises the integral American social and political value of freedom to establish politically manufactured equality through tax hikes for the wealthy, affirmative action and nationalized services.

The government shouldn’t pick winners and losers in our economy, and it shouldn’t judge marriage eligibility. Yet both the Democratic and Republican parties impinge on Americans’ freedoms and seek expanded control, whether fiscally or socially. Whether Obama or Romney wins this election, Congress will work to thwart the president’s attempts at political or social progress, military spending will increase, foreign entanglements in the Middle East will continue, climate change will remain unsolved, taxes will probably be raised on some sector of Americans and government power over the American citizenry will expand. We clearly need a pragmatic alternative.

While “our two-party political system is destroying America,” remains a popular declaration, Americans will largely ignore the half-dozen third-party presidential candidates come Election Day. It’s mostly psychological — we want to vote for the winning candidate; we don’t want our vote to be wasted — but the media and misinformation are also at fault. Last week, an obese dachshund named Obie received more national press than Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. Seven in 10 Americans believe our government was designed as a two-party system, while political parties didn’t exist until the 1790s, and third parties have historically played major roles in influencing American politics.

While third parties may not elect candidates or rally widespread support, they can shape the political system by illuminating unrepresented political beliefs and prompting platform readjustments in the vote-thirsty, dominant parties.

Gary Johnson, a former Republican governor of New Mexico, advocates socially tolerant, fiscally conservative leadership stressing economic, diplomatic and foreign non-interventionism. Governor Johnson wants to abolish the corporate tax to encourage business, immediately end our costly military occupation of Afghanistan, repeal Obamacare, cut government spending, remove tax loopholes instead of raising taxes, end government subsidies, expand states’ control, legalize and tax marijuana, ensure government neutrality on social issues and encourage legal immigration rather than attack illegal immigration. These lofty goals aren’t pipe dreams — they rest on tried and true principles of non-interventionism and personal liberty advocated by our Founding Fathers. And in New Mexico, Gary Johnson’s libertarian leadership and budget slashing created one of the only state budget surpluses in the last four decades.

I know that Gary Johnson will not be elected, but my hope is that if he gains a substantial portion of the popular vote, libertarian views could reign in the fiscal liberalism of the left and convince the Republican Party that its social policies are isolating young people.

Voting for a third party is not wasting my vote when compromising my beliefs for a Republican or Democrat who leads based on polarized party stances rather than moral and economic pragmatism is the alternative. A vote for Gary Johnson challenges current political gridlock, voices frustration in the failed policies of both Democrats and Republicans and helps politicians recognize that their parties have lost touch with the values held by the majority of our socially tolerant, fiscally conservative nation. We can’t afford four more years of Obama, but Romney’s policies are not the alternatives we need. You don’t have to pick the lesser of two evils — vote libertarian with me and demand a change in our divided, stagnated political system.