The tightening of the current Presidential Election worries many who find Trump repulsive and unfit for the office of the presidency. However in addition to justly attacking Trump, the Democratic establishment has initiated an unjust full frontal assault on voters: not only those who are voting for Trump, but voters who are choosing to vote for one of the many minor party candidates: Stein, Johnson, McMullin, among others.

“If you don’t vote, that’s a vote for Trump… If you vote for a third-party candidate who’s got no chance to win, that’s a vote for Trump.” — Barack Obama

While I do believe that people should vote for whoever best represents them (an opinion counter to the voices in concordance with the president), there are plenty of articles and opinions on the philosophy of voting or not voting for the third party candidate, I want to extend the discourse to the source of the problem: the winner take all voting system, and how the only way to fix this problem is to vote third party.

CGP Grey Explains the Problems with Winner Take All/First Past the Post

I want to extend the discourse to the source of the problem: the winner take all voting system

The winner take all voting system is how most federal and state level offices choose the winner of an election: the person with the most votes wins. Many take issue with this system in terms of the electoral college, as a candidate who wins the popular vote can still lose the presidency. An even worse problem is the spoiler vote, which makes it mathematically possible for only one of two candidates to win. This system creates the massive coalition parties we see today. When party officials tell you not to waste their vote, they are really telling you to support the system that doesn’t give you a choice. The easy solution is to allow voters to indicate what candidates they like more, and the ones they like less: by rejecting voter preference winner take all rejects democracy.

While it is tempting to play into this system (after all, the lesser of two evils is still less evil), the only way it changes is if the system itself threatens the parties’ power. They are one of two choices, as long as they’re playing their cards right, they will get ~50% of the vote, and if they don’t play their cards right it is only a temporary setback. Minor parties are labelled as a wasted vote, since they threaten to upend this system. Their success puts a party against twice as many opponents, and the party closest — ideologically — to the minor party is hurt the most. In the winner take all system, this situation would turn out negatively for those who prefer the two competing parties that are closest ideologically. If we can push the major parties to protect their power from spoilers, we can change the entire legislative process — a larger upend to the system than voting for Donald J. Trump.