After Bernie Sanders left the presidential race, ‘Bernie or Bust’ supporters began to look towards the third party nominees in order to avoid voting for a different democrat in this election. Not only are the third party runners hardly pulling any votes, as seen by previous elections, but a loss in democrat votes is enough to have a republican voted into office.

Currently, the leading third party candidates against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are Gary Johnson and Jill Stein according to 2016.presidential-candidates.org. Johnson is running for the Libertarian Party while Stein is with the Green Party. ABC News conducted a poll that found that one third of Americans are considering voting for a third party nominee, but the current polls only show Johnson pulling eight percent of voters and Stein with four percent.

Even though these runners are on the ballot, they are not polling enough to make it into presidential debates. Studies by the New York Times, CNN, Fox News and many other news sources say that candidates must have 15% in polls in order to qualify. Due to this, the majority of the voters have no idea who these third party runners are, or what their platform is.

This election mirrors the 2000 presidential debate, between Democrat Al Gore, Republican George W. Bush and Green Party Ralph Nader. In this election, some Democrat voters split off from the party to vote for Nader, causing Bush to win. The way this election is going, ‘Bernie or Bust’ supporters could cause Trump to take the election.

Third Party candidates cause problems. They split votes and ruin elections, handing whatever Republican runner the presidency. Voting for an independent party is a waste, proven time and time again with several elections. The only way to ensure the value of one’s vote is to vote for one of the two major parties.