Democrats have a message to millennials: don’t vote third party or else you’re voting for Donald Trump. That’s simply not true.
As a registered Republican, I was “obligated ” to support the GOP nominee even when my primary candidate Ron Paul failed in both of his efforts in 2008 and 2012. I obliged the first time, voting for John McCain even though I agreed with him on hardly any issues — The Supreme Court after all!
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By 2012, I had a change of heart. While I wasn’t in love with Mitt Romney and had serious issues with his running mate Paul Ryan, I bucked the system and voted third party. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t matter.
The news didn’t break the evening of election night that my sole vote had changed the course of history. No one even knew what I did other than me. I voted for someone I actually agreed with and felt good about it, and no pundit or party official could take that away from me.
Perhaps things would have been different if I lived in a swing state, but I lived in New York. Maybe I could have led the charge to get drunk and vote for Romney.
Nonetheless, it still would have not changed the course of a presidential election. There have only been a handful of elections that a third party candidate received the difference between the winner and loser- – the gubernatorial races in Virginia, Maine, and Washington are exceptions to the norm. And, they only would have swayed the election had 100 percent of that party’s supporters voted in one direction. Ask Ted Cruz how often that happens.
Democrats are apoplectic at the idea that Bernie voters are now supporting Gary Johnson and Jill Stein over Clinton, but millennials have the independent streak boomers lack.
Voting does not have to be binary — millennials know it and boomers fear it — and it may change the way American elections work. The same generation that elected the first black president may be the generation that breaks the two party system.
