Is everyone all calmed down after seeing Donald Trump rise to the presidency? Good, because now I'm going to explain why blaming third party voters for his victory is totally wrong.
About 58 percent (approx. 84,860,000 voters) of registered voters actually participated in the 2016 election, and that's only about 39 percent of Americans who are eligible to vote.
That means nearly half of registered voters and nearly three quarters of eligible voters didn't fulfill their civic duty as American citizens.
Not to mention, 10 million of those voters who stayed home were registered democrats.
The Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, and the independent candidate, Evan McMullin, only accounted for roughly 0.05 percent (7,019,685 votes) of the total popular vote.
Even if Hillary Clinton had gotten every Stein vote, she wouldn't have won. Some have even gone the distance to say if she had all of Stein's votes and half of Johnson's she could've pulled it off.
That's false.
Libertarians are conservative, so it is unlikely that they would've voted for a liberal candidate like Clinton. McMullin voters would have likely felt the same way about her, because he was a former Republican lobbyist.
See where their logic is flawed?
The Donald Trump era was ushered in by the same people who are blaming third party voters.
"I think it's silly to blame third party voters for choosing the person they thought was best for the job." President of ASU's Youth for Johnson/Weld chapter David Howman said. "Perhaps the blame should rest on Clinton's shoulders, especially when everyone considered her to be the front runner since the conventions."
The Clinton campaign completely ignored Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in the final two weeks before November 8. This allowed Trump to take his campaign on a final push into each of those rust belt states to force the upset in the electoral college.
A n excellent article on how Clinton and Obama lost the rust belt. Revenge of the Forgotten Class - ProPublica https://t.co/RtylgADgkJ
— Michael Farrell (@MichaelFarrellE) November 10, 2016
So, enough talk about third party voters throwing the election. What's done is done, and we have to live with the results. Protesting and complaining isn't going to change anything now (trust me, the electoral college won't undermine democracy and vote Clinton into office).
My rule is simple: if you didn't vote, don't complain. And in this situation, that's over three quarters of the nation.
Considering over half of the country didn't register to vote let alone actually do it, they can't complain either.
Reach the columnist at abundy@asu.edu or follow @abkbundy on Twitter.
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Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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