One of the most common phrases I hear when I say that I am going to vote third-party in an election is “you’re throwing away your vote”. There is an insistence that if I don’t vote for a Democrat or for a Republican that my vote won’t count at all. In fact, when I am told this by a Democrat they always follow up with “you are taking a vote away from the Democratic candidate”, and when I am told this by a Republican they follow up with “you are taking a vote away from the Republican candidate”. These people claim that my vote for a third-party candidate automatically helps the major-party candidate that they are not voting for.
So, if my vote doesn’t matter, how does it help somebody that I am not even voting for? If every vote counts, how come my vote for a third-party candidate doesn’t help the candidate that I vote for? This arguments are not logical.
I have always said that the only reason third-party candidates don’t win elections is because so few people vote for them. And the only reason so few people vote for them is because they are all afraid that nobody else will vote for them. This is what the Democrats and the Republicans want. They have tricked the American people to believe that they are the only candidates capable of being voted for. That is the tyranny of a two-party system. If everyone voted for the candidate they actually wanted to, regardless of party affiliation, then we wouldn’t be stuck in a two-party system anymore. We’d be in a democratic system.
I grew up in a liberal family. And most of the time, I have heard the accusation that Libertarians are just Republicans in disguise. The argument goes that Libertarians only support corporations, not people, and that they are all racist, sexist, tax-haters who want to take advantage of workers and take away everyone’s rights. These accusations are ridiculous, of course. Especially in light of Republicans such as Chris Christie calling Libertarians dangerous and un-American. The Democrats lump the Libertarians with the Conservative side of politics, and the Republicans lump them in with the Liberals. Neither side is happy to see Libertarians in the political arena, and both parties work together to shut Libertarians up and discredit the movement. So, the argument that Libertarians are just “Republicans in disguise” is ludicrous and unsubstantiated.
The next time somebody tells you that you are wasting your vote by voting Libertarian, you just remind them that you are voting for Freedom and for the right to your democratic autonomy and self-authority. You remind them that nobody has the right to buy your vote, and nobody has the right to tell you how to vote. No vote is a wasted vote.