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While peddling Jill Stein for president over the past few weeks, I have been assaulted many times with the challenge that by voting for Stein I am making it possible for Donald Trump to win.

They always make this claim, like it was something they just discovered. I don't owe my vote to anyone. Hillary Clinton could win it by telling the truth. If I didn't vote at all, my lack of a vote would have the same effect as voting for Stein in regards to the Trump vs. Clinton contest.

So voting for Stein will have no more effect than staying home. The illusion that I am a disloyal member of the left is nonsense. I don't want Clinton with or without anyone else in the race.

This is all old news. Voting for the lesser evil is a very old American tradition. Its source is only indirectly the two-party system. We vote our fears because of the way the Constitution has set up the process. If we had a runoff system, so a candidate needed a real majority to win, then there wouldn't be a problem.

Let's confront the real problem and change the election system.

Dan Thomson, Madison