Voters will soon have to make a choice between two of the least popular presidential candidates ever — leaving some so fed up they’re turning to long-shot, third-party contenders.

But don’t tell them they’re wasting their votes Nov. 8 on Libertarian Gary Johnson or Green Party nominee Jill Stein. (Who both took home less than 1 percent in the 2012 race.)

“If you submit to the idea that we’re not really the ones in charge, that somebody else is in charge and we just have to choose between two candidates of this tiny class of people who are really the ones in charge of the country, then we’ve already forfeited our democracy,” said Matthew Andrews, a Green Party member from Newton.

“Mathematically, in Massachusetts at least, voting Republican is throwing your vote away,” added Natick’s Justin O’Donnell, a Johnson backer.

He has a point. At the beginning of the year, Republicans made up just under 11 percent of registered voters in the state.

O’Donnell hopes his support for Johnson sends a message that this election is about the voters being “dissatisfied with what they’re offered.”

Still, third-party presidential candidates have not performed well in modern history. H. Ross Perot found the most success when he ran in 1992 as an independent, collecting nearly 19 percent of the popular vote. When he ran in 1996 as a true third-party candidate, he won just 8 percent.

And Johnson’s gaffes regarding his knowledge of foreign leaders and the humanitarian crisis in the Syrian city of Aleppo has not helped his cause. As his supporters waved signs along the Jamaica Pond boathouse recently, a passenger in one car shouted, “What’s Aleppo?”

It is uncertain whether Johnson and Stein will even appear on the ballot in all 50 states. That has pushed both camps to work against a shared nemesis: two-party dominance.

“I’m fighting for trying to break the two-party system,” said Jon Plante of Boston, a Johnson supporter. “To give people more options to vote.”

Green Party supporter Dan Kontoff of Brighton said he’s frustrated by both Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, and the big-money backers he feels they represent.

“Both of those candidates work for the same people: Wall Street, at the expense of poor people,” Kontoff said.

Political platforms based on individual liberties is another draw for third-party fans, especially for Andrews, who grew up near historic Battle Green.

“I’m actually from Lexington, Massachusetts, and so I grew up with this idea of the minutemen standing up on the Green to declare our independence,” he said. “And so many people have sacrificed so much over the years for democracy that I think we have to be willing to stand up for it again now and protect it.

“That’s going to mean voting for what you want instead of what you’re afraid of.”

Meghan Ottolini is an editor at CRN Magazine.