Third party voters aim to support like-minded candidates this election season

While most students opt for traditional candidates, Ilyas Khan, a junior double majoring in linguistics and fine arts at Carnegie Mellon University, shared their belief on why people are choosing to vote third party.

“People who are voting third party see democracy not as a competition of two teams,” Khan said, “but as a power-making and power-building process that determines the fates of real people every day.”

As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump headline this year’s presidential race, some voters are seeking a third option that better reflects their values. 

Khan explained why they are voting for the Green Party on Election Day.

“Jill Stein is the only one who I believe actually has a platform representing any kind of vision of the future,” Khan said. “Harris’ platform is status quo. Trump’s platform is the past. [Chase] Oliver’s platform is the past.”

Khan recognized that they don’t think Stein will become president, but believes their vote will bring the Green Party closer to being officially recognized nationally.

“For me, I’m personally hoping to be one of the millions to get the Green Party to that 5% threshold,” Khan said. “I simply believe that it is crucial for third party expansion across the board … at which point they can get broader federal spending allocated to them [so] they have far more reach and far more access and ability to engage with voters.”

Khan believes that neither of the two major parties has ever looked out for them. 

“I’m Latino, I’m Muslim and I’m queer,” Khan said. “And in my experience as all of those things, neither party has ever looked out for me. So if I’m trying to vote for people’s safety, I’m not going to vote for the Democratic nominee, nor am I going to vote for the Republican nominee. I think third party options are really the option of least harm, the option of peace and the option of democracy.”

Bora Uluturk, a sophomore political science and economics major, said he is a registered Democrat but decided to give his vote to unaffiliated candidate Cornel West. He explained that he is choosing not to vote for Harris because she “doesn’t do enough to differentiate herself from Trump” on immigration and the Israel-Palestine conflict.

“You vote third party because you have an issue with how the major parties, in this case specifically the Democratic Party and Kamala Harris, are doing things, what their messaging is [and] what their policy, agenda and priorities are,” Uluturk said. “[It’s] sort of a way to show them that there is a significant portion of people who care about [these policies].”

Riley Moran, the neighborhood groups coordinator of the Green Party of Allegheny County, is voting for Jill Stein because of her stance on ending the genocide of Palestinians and her policies regarding climate change. 

“I think [Jill Stein] speaks to what the majority believe,” Moran said. “But what we have been told by the two main parties is [that it’s] ‘too radical’ or ‘not feasible.’” 

Although a third party hasn’t won an electoral vote since 1968, Uluturk argued that voting third party is not “wasting your vote.”

“I understand how people see it that way,” Uluturk said. “But on the other hand, the whole thing is that as a politician, you’re supposed to earn the vote of people who are voting for you. You shouldn’t be entitled to the votes of people. If you just think that you’re entitled to the votes of a certain subsect of people just because the other major candidate is so much worse, that’s just entitlement.” 

Moran discussed how a third party vote will be more helpful in contributing to the party’s overall success than the odds of having a “tie breaking” vote. 

“For us to grow as a party at the local level, we are unfortunately forced by state law to participate in these statewide races, even if [the Green Party] would rather focus all of their resources into local races,” Moran said. “Your vote is much more likely to get us to that 1% than it is to be the tie-breaking vote for somebody to win the election. So I would argue your vote actually counts much more if you vote third party.”

Khan said they think it’s important that third parties continue to work for the “unrealistic” goal of winning an election. 

“I heard someone say the other day, ‘the Green Party is reaching for gold. They should have reached for bronze first,’” Khan said. “But you can’t reach for bronze if you’re not even in the same competition. Your only shot is to go for gold and make everyone else in the room incredibly uncomfortable. And then once you’ve done that, you’re in the competition. You can go for bronze.”