Although Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the main stars of the 2016 presidential election, their performances have left many unimpressed. Instead of casting a halfhearted vote, some students are placing their support behind third party candidates.
“You have to go with your beliefs more than voting just for winning,” senior Daniel Olsson said.
Olsson said he originally planned to vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders but turned to Green Party candidate Jill Stein after Clinton won the Democratic nomination.
Olsson is in the process of starting an IU Green Party club and said he expects a strong turnout for Stein from IU students.
He said he believes the Green Party is the most progressive and the party of millennials.
As the name suggests, its biggest focus is to find solutions for climate change.
The effect climate change can have on the economy as well as the environment makes Olsson believe the issue is much bigger than people acknowledge, he said.
“This should be the main focus of our time, but it isn’t,” Olsson said.
Olsson said the main parties have failed to represent him and don’t deserve his support.
He said he thinks the candidates are more similar than people like to admit but also said the Republican nominee is the worse of the two.
“This election proves something really key, and Donald Trump shows this more than anything else — education is not valued in our country,” Olsson said.
While Olsson said he doesn’t think Stein will win, he said his vote is not a throwaway.
It is based on the research he’s done and a true conviction that Stein is the best choice.
“If it’s a rebel vote, you’re not going to help our country,” Olsson said.
Both junior Justin Smith and senior Brandon Lavy said they decided to cast their vote for another third party candidate, Libertarian Gary Johnson, after Rand Paul dropped out of the Republican primary. Paul tends to lean libertarian.
Lavy served as the president of IU’s Students for Rand Paul while the campaign was still active.
Since he didn’t agree with the Republicans’ pick of Trump as the nominee, he said he decided to stick with the Libertarians for this election.
Although he was a Barack Obama supporter in high school, the 2016 election led Lavy to discover the alignment between his ideals, like fiscal responsibility and the legalization of marijuana, and those of the Libertarian party.
He said he thinks he has support from many other IU students who also feel disenfranchised by this election.
“It’s almost worse to vote for Hillary or Trump than for Gary Johnson, and I think that’s really telling of the time we’re living in right now,” Lavy said.
Even outside of IU, Lavy has found positive support for his voting decision.
He said he has already convinced his mother to vote for Johnson and hopes to help his grandparents make the switch when he places his early vote.
“I’ve got a five-minute car ride where I can give them my pitch on the way to the polls,” Lavy said.
Smith, on the other hand, does not have his family’s blessing.
He said his conservative family thinks he is giving his vote away to Clinton, and many Democrats see a vote for Johnson as a vote for Trump.
While not his first choice, Johnson represents more of Smith’s values than anyone else.
“He’s not a sleazy businessman or warmongering oligarch,” Smith said. “He’s an honest man who wants to send the troops home, create a culture of tolerance and save the taxpayers some money.”
Some have no idea who Johnson is or refer to him as “the Aleppo guy,” Smith said.
Despite Johnson’s ignorance of the issues facing Aleppo, a city of conflict in Syria, Smith said Johnson is still the best bet for him.
He thinks the Democrats and Republicans just point out the flaws in the other side of the argument while refusing to admit any of their own shortcomings.
Even if Johnson loses, voting for him will help the future of the Libertarian party, Smith said.
If Johnson receives 5 percent of the popular vote, the Libertarians will be considered a major party.
In addition, it lets the two current main parties see their strategies aren’t working for everyone.
“I think it’s important to send a message to the American that we’re not just going to going to pick the lesser of the two evils,” Smith said.
