For those of us who don't like either main political party

[Aunt Spiker]

What do you consider and look at when choosing your candidate or support measures?

Do you favor a lesser popular third party?

If you don't support everything that ___ party stands for how do you go about it?

Do you choose between the lesser of the two evils - if so - on what basis?

 

[Slartibartfast]

What do you consider and look at when choosing your candidate or support measures?

Ideas that I agree vs electability. Some of something is better than all of nothing.

Do you favor a lesser popular third party?

I have never really looked beyond the two main parties due to electability issues.

If you don't support everything that ___ party stands for how do you go about it?

I have more agreement with the democrats than the republicans. However, there are things within the democratic party that I do disagree with. But again, some of something is better than all of nothing.

Do you choose between the lesser of the two evils - if so - on what basis?

I think democratic candidates tend to be pretty good. It would be silly to try and demand that someone in office agree with me on everything since I have to share this country (and politician) with 300+ MM other people. Usually my experience in politics is the acceptable guy vs the frightening guy. Also, national politicians tend to agree with me on the issues I care about most and I don't really tend to pay much attention to the issues I do not care about such as guns, unions, the role of religion, etc.

Locally I tend to vote libertarian since I would like to keep city and county government as small as possible. I prefer them to keep the usual duties of police, trash, zoning, etc.

Ultimately, I would love for there to be a party that was more to my liking. Democrats are too corporatist for me and I would like to see them legislate economic issues with an approach that favors citizens more than large companies. Greens and other US liberal parties are far too left and seem a bit crazy. I would absolutely love the dems if they weren't corrupt, but I guess you take what you can get when there are no good alternatives.

 

[rivrrat]

I don't choose the lesser of two evils. I either *want* someone in office, or I don't. I refuse to vote for someone I do not want in office. Even if I may want someone else less.

I really don't pay any attention to the party a candidate belongs to, because it is, to me, 100% irrelevant.

I pay attention to where they stand on issues that are important to me.

 

[MikeVFF]

I feel like we're all ****ed, if you haven't noticed already... The only people who like the direction (any of the choices we've been given recently) are either idiots or extremely wealthy. I really have no hope in american future, a third party is impossible because of a few reasons; ignorance to the existence of third parties, and the variety of third parties. Democrats and republicans may only get 30% of votes theoretically if third parties were more pronounced, but i feel the other 70% would be so split that the 2 main parties would win anyway.

 

[justabubba]

vote for the candidate whose views i can embrace, regardless of party affiliation
if neither, then i either write in a name or skip that ballot

our system needs to have a negative vote option as well. if neither candidate is very good, then you could still vote against the one you like least, negating a vote for that inferior candidate
as it is, when someone wins a big victory, they always proclaim they have a mandate. the reality often is that the electorate so opposed the losing candidate that they voted for the other fellow running. that does not constitute a true mandate. negative voting would display the true degree of support the prevailing candidate actually had among his constituents

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

What do you consider and look at when choosing your candidate or support measures?

Do you favor a lesser popular third party?

If you don't support everything that ___ party stands for how do you go about it?

Do you choose between the lesser of the two evils - if so - on what basis?

I usually ignore election days, it's absolutely worthless to vote if you want anything other than the status quo of moronic behavior.

I only make exceptions for times when the person, that's in office, is a complete failure and is massively screwing thus up really fast.

 

[phattonez]

I vote, but I also realize that my vote isn't worth a damn on those important positions. I love voting on propositions, but voting for president or governor or senator or things like that is a waste of time. I usually vote for the candidate that I like most (meaning the one I agree with most, like Dale Ogden who I'm probably going to vote for as governor of California) in those situations regardless of electability.

 

[Anarcho-fascist]

I've voted third party for president before.

My reasoning:
I wasn't too impressed by either of the presidential tickets of the main parties.
My state isn't a battleground state and was definitely going for one candidate over the other.
Third parties get few votes so that with my vote the total votes the third party gets increases by a greater percentage than what one of the two major party's would've.
If (e.g.) 10% of the population votes for a third party then that provides an incentive for one or both of the two main parties to consider shifting their platform a bit toward that third party's