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Notes -
If you are in a solidly Blue/Red state and not excited for either of the major party candidate, you can make your vote count by voting for a third party candidate. It gives that party greater clout to influence the platforms of the major parties. Plus, if their candidate gets more than 5% of the national vote, that party gets access to some federal funds for the next election.
As best as I can tell, voting for a third party candidate is about as worthless as any other vote in this context. The odds that my one vote is what takes some third party candidate up from 4.99% to 5.00% or whatever the threshold is is astronomically low. The odds that my one vote takes the candidate's vote count across some threshold such that it allows the party to garner greater clout in some meaningful, true way is much higher, since there are many many such thresholds, but it's still astronomically small.
Still, I think it is a more valuable signal than abstaining. I constantly see people who just assume non-voters would break heavily Dem if forced to choose a side, but it is really hard to say for sure what would happen. But votes for 3rd party show up in a countable way, and reduce the total votes of the winner. Reducing them to below 50% even in victory is a good way to send a signal that they didn't win, the other guy just lost.
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