Theresa Amato, the national presidential campaign manager for Ralph Nader in 2000 and 2004, is the author of "Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny."

All candidates have to earn their votes, so it shouldn’t be said that a third-party candidate can snatch victory from a major contender. Any election is more likely to be determined by disaffected voter turnout, byzantine partisan election rules, out of control spending, faulty vote-counting, the weather and an 18th-century electoral system that inhibits voter participation and choices.

Jill Stein, who calls Hillary Clinton a 'Wall Street, war and Walmart' candidate, can appeal to voters battling for the Democratic Party’s soul.

But with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s high negative ratings leading more people to consider third party candidates, this election could energize voters to seek structural reforms for a competitive democracy in which third party candidates could be viable.

Since Trump sealed the nomination, the Libertarian Party has received increased attention as Republicans throw support to Gary Johnson, the party’s nominee. He received 1.2 percent of the vote in 2012 when he was on the ballot in 48 states, and he’ll likely be on 49 or 50 this year. Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico and his running mate, William Weld, a likable Republican, both have cross appeal to socially liberal, financially conservative voters.

But too little has been paid to Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presumptive nominee. After a week of Hillary Clinton-Tim Kaine ceremonies, don’t be surprised to see an exodus of wannabe Sanders revolutionaries for Stein, a practicing physician, environmental health advocate and married mom with two Harvard degrees. Stein has held local office and her platform overlaps substantially with Sanders, but in 2012, with an incumbent Democratic president and ballot access in only 37 states, she earned just 0.36 percent of the votes.

Nonetheless, Stein, who calls Clinton a “Wall Street, war and Walmart” candidate, can appeal to voters battling for the Democratic Party’s soul. Since Sanders endorsed Clinton, Stein has benefited from noticeable Sanders-denominated donations of $27, which double with federal matching funds. Stein can at best hope for ballot access in 47 states at this point, but her sincerity could attract those aghast with the “truthiness” of the two-party nominees.

Third party support will drop dramatically this fall when the media froths about how close the race is — nationally. Voters unfamiliar with how the Electoral College works will fail to vote their conscience for a third-party candidate even when in their states the outcome is predictably a landslide for either of the major parties. The gate-keeping cartel controlled by the Democratic and Republican parties, and known as the Commission on Presidential Debates, will exacerbate this scenario by continuing to deny millions of voters access to the third-party candidates through the televised debates. It’s time for electoral reforms that would allow third parties to compete.



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