I’ve been hearing a lot of people complain about voting in this year’s election, saying they don’t like either candidate. This confuses me, because this has always been the reality of our political system: multiple people vie for the same position and eventually it’s narrowed down to two candidates who have a viable chance at being elected. If you find yourself one of those people who doesn’t like either candidate, try looking at it this way:
Compromise: an agreement reached by each side making concessions, typically involves accepting standards that are lower than desirable
Usually, we think of compromise as this dream of a mutual agreement between two people, or two sides of an argument with multiple people representing both sides. In this case, think of making a compromise with yourself. Some ways to do this would be to find which candidate for the presidential election seems more tolerable to you, or has more policies that you agree with. One site that I think does a good job of explaining the differences in policy for both candidates while also being understandable is this. Seth Meyers is here for a quick summation comparing the behaviors and scandals of Clinton and Trump (starting at 6:12).
I know I didn’t mention the third party candidates. You can of course explore those options. Historically, third party candidates don’t poll well enough to be part of presidential debates. Unfortunately, research has shown that those who do vote for a third party candidate only influence the election by taking away electoral votes from one candidate. In other words, voting for a third party takes your vote away from your second choice candidate (either Clinton or Trump). If enough people vote third party, elections can change even though the candidate they voted for had no chance. One often mentioned example of this is the Bush vs. Gore election in 2000 (see this article for more information).
The point of this article is really just one sentence: If you’re unhappy with both candidates, choose the candidate that is, in your opinion, the “lesser evil”. Whatever you do, be sure to exercise the right to vote that our American predecessors fought so hard for.