The Bloomington Green Party’s growth has surged in 2016.

This is because the divisive nature of this election and the rise of politicians such as Democratic Party candidate Bernie Sanders and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, said Dakota Hudelson, a co-facilitator for the Bloomington Green Party. After Wikileaks released emails revealing Democratic Party officials were working against Sanders, many Democrats felt betrayed and turned to the Green Party on a national and local level.

“The Green Party represents an alternative party to the left,” Hudelson said.

Chuck Rogers, a member of the Bloomington Green Party, said he was a Democrat his whole life until Sanders dropped out. Rogers, 63, said he could not see himself voting for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, so he switched to support Jill Stein and the Green Party.

Many voters feel similarly. In 2012, Stein received .4 percent of the vote, or about 470,000 votes, according to Ballotpedia. However, in 2016 Stein is polling higher than ever before at about 2.1 percent, according to Real Clear Politics, which averages the poll number from sources such as The Economist/YouGov, Fox News, Rasmussen Reports, ABC News/Washington Post Tracking and others.

Bloomington is a progressive, liberal town in need of the Green Party because the Democratic Party is oligarchic and corporate, according to the local party’s manifesto. Founded in 1984, the Green Party supports progressive causes such as preventing global climate change, grassroots democracy, social justice and equity and advancing world peace.

The Green Party does not accept any corporate or political action committee donations and does not collaborate with lobbyists, Hudelson said. Every local Green Party branch must also have two leaders known as co-facilitators. However, only one of these co-leaders can identify as a cis-male, or a male assigned male at birth. This is to promote diversity, Hudelson said.

“The cis white male has dominated American politics since its inception,” Hudelson said. “But we tend to screw things up.”

When an organization is led by a single group, the group is begging to miss things, Hudelson said.

The local party has worked to spread the word about their movement through tabling at the Farmer’s Market, organizing literature drops throughout Bloomington and gathering people to talk about the election and how to write in Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.

However, there is still a resistance to the Green Party because people are afraid of splitting the Democratic Party vote in the presidential election, which would allow Donald Trump to win, Hudelson said. He said this problem could be solved by passing rank voting, which is a major platform of the Green Party. Rank voting is a voting system in which voters choose their candidates in order of preference.

While the party growth has surged because of the upcoming election, Marc Bogonovich, a party member, said in an email. However, the party is more interested in building long-term support by running candidates in local elections in the future.

The Bloomington Green Party plans to collaborate with the local Libertarian Party on ending the drug war and passing ranked choice voting in Bloomington and Monroe County, Bogonovich said in an email.

The Green Party will also begin to tackle issues such as homelessness and sex worker rights in Bloomington.

“We’re not interested in big money, we’re interested in the people and making real change,” Hudelson said.

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