A third-party vote is not a waste for me or my country’s future

“Your candidate has no chance to win.”

“You’re just taking a vote away from (their preferred candidate).”

“You’re wasting your vote.”

If you’ve ever voted for a third-party candidate, you’ve probably heard one or more of these bromides.

I’ve been hearing them, from people I like and respect, ever since I cast my first presidential vote for H. Ross Perot in 1992.

One former co-worker told me that I “basically helped to elect (Bill) Clinton.”

Why do some folks say such things?

Any implication that Perot had “no chance to win” was mathematically untrue, because he was on the ballot in all 50 states.

Regardless, when did voting for president become akin to going to the racetrack to pick a winner?

Your vote is an expression of your beliefs.

The collective will of all who vote for the same person could influence public policy.

Look at the effect socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders had on the Democratic platform.

The only wasted vote is for someone not seeking the office.

My friend likely knew about Perot’s ballot presence. I believe he was coming from the “herding the sheep” point of view.

Years later, the caricature of a politician started becoming clearer to me: kissing the babies, photo-ops while feeding the homeless, speaking from an aircraft carrier, etc.

These are nothing more than public relations efforts to present themselves in the best possible light to voters who pay the least possible attention to politics: sheep.

Some sheep feed you the “wasted vote” drivel themselves.

That could emanate from their insecurity, since you’ve likely given it more thought and your principles are probably more firm.

You know what Republicans and Democrats working to “get things done” means: $19 trillion in debt, thousands of pages of onerous regulations, compromised freedoms, excessive foreign intervention, etc.

A sense of inadequacy overcomes them, and they get defensive.

The ultimate peddlers of the “wasted vote” silliness are those who derive their power from the status quo, like House Speaker Paul Ryan, who recently bent reality when he said “you don’t get a third option.”

It’s also party strategists and favor-seeking lobbyists.

My friend is a party guy, once a delegate to a national GOP convention. He’s currently a local elected official here in Texas.

In recent years, however, he’s credited me for his move in a more libertarian direction, going so far as to possibly voting for that party’s nominee this year, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson.

When you stick to your guns, civilly back up your position with more than talking points and humbly admit to lesser knowledge on some issues, you’ll get people’s attention.

I’m not even 100 percent comfortable with the label “libertarian.”

All I’m doing is voting based on the principles of our founding, as I understand them: freedom, liberty and the Constitution.

Those values are simple to understand and maintain. The Constitution itself is only 21 pages long.

I was a sheep when I voted for Perot. When I asked a friend who he was voting for in that election, he said, “I dunno, probably that billionaire.”

Based on recent polling, young voters today indicate they’ll vote for Gov. Johnson over businessman Donald Trump, and that figure is likely to grow because the support they gave to Sanders is unlikely to shift en masse to Hillary Clinton.

We do a disservice to those younger folks if we allow ourselves to become so jaded that we vocally “choose between the lesser of two evils,”

I wonder how many of those folks tell pollsters that America is on the “wrong track,” or that they expect future generations to be worse off. How hypocritical it is to then dismiss a more reputable third option.

What’s more evil than such prophetically self-fulfilling behavior?

This story was originally published August 19, 2016 at 6:25 PM with the headline "A third-party vote is not a waste for me or my country’s future."