Third Party Candidates and the Voting System
Despite George Washington’s warning, the United States political system has devolved into a two party system. Despite this, the third party candidates play a significant role in the electoral system and popular vote statistics even though these parties rarely win elections.
In the 2016 presidential election especially, we saw an interesting outcome based on voter preferences and rankings with the third party candidates playing an integral part. On a qualitative level, there were many voters who felt neither the Democratic or Republican candidate were good fits for the role, and a larger than usual number of people who actually preferred the third party candidates (1). These voters were faced with a decision: they could ignore their first preference for the third party candidate who has little chance of winning while casting their vote in the two party system or they could cast their vote for the third party candidate in protest of the two major party candidates. From a quantitate perspective, those that chose the latter (Cornell Republicans included) were what made the difference in the election (2).
This difference was not because their candidate won, but because their vote, if it had been cast for Hillary, could have changed the election outcome. In most key states, had the third party voters cast their vote for Hillary, she would have won by an overwhelming majority (3). However, it is unclear whether any of the votes cast in the election were in hopes of agenda manipulation. It is clear that when there are multiple options in a majority rules system, the possibility is probable.
In recent news, Jill Stein has called for a recount of votes for Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania (4). Conspiracies have arisen from Trump supporters claiming that Jill Stein wants to give her votes to Hillary. However, this is unlikely because only in the state of Wisconsin would this tip the electoral voters, but it would still not be enough electoral votes for Hillary to win. In addition, there is no way to confirm that Jill Stein’s voters would have voted for Hillary as their second preference if Stein was not in the race.
(1) https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-polls-overestimate-support-for-third-party-candidate/
(3) http://www.cnn.com/election/results/president
(4) http://time.com/4583546/wisconsin-recount-vote-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-jill-stein/