Third-party voting: A good way to dodge responsibility

Thingswewould currently be better off without:

■ People who ride bikes on the sidewalk

■ Robocalls

■ Third parties

I know, I raised the bar a little at the end. Just trying to sneak us into a discussion of a critical part of our presidential elections that almost no one can stand to talk about.

There’ll be quite a few third-party candidates floating around on our ballots this year. Some are doing fine things on the state and local levels, but avoid the ones who want to run the country. Most are feeding off a neither-candidate-isgood-enough syndrome that makes people vote for mystery men and women who come attached to a nice-sounding party label. It makes you feel superior — you’re a voter who won’t just settle.

Real-world elections require you to look over a list of deeply imperfect candidates and pick the ones whose priorities are closest to yours. It’s not like getting married. There’s really no option for hanging onto your ballot until a better person comes along.

Throwing your support to a third-party candidate with no hope whatsoever of getting elected is, however, a goodway to dodge responsibility. Imagine you’re awellknown Republican like Mitt Romney or John Bolton. You want to get off the Trump bandwagon without looking like a friend to Democrats. Soyouannounceyou’ll be writing in the name of your mother-in-law or pet hamster.

In Maine, Republican Sen. Susan Collinswon’t saywho she’s voting for: “Idon’t think that the people of Maine need my advice on whom to support for president.” Now this is probably very true, but the point was to evaluate the senator’s judgment, not get her directions to take to the polls.

Collins is having a tough time right now. She’s running for reelection against Sara Gideon, theDemocratic speaker of the State House of Representatives, in one of the year’s most important Senate races.

They had a debate the other night, but I’ll bet viewerswalkedawaytalkingabout Max Linn, an independent who has no chance of being elected to anything. Linn shouted “Request denied!” whenever the moderators tried to get him to answer questions. It did make for more excitement than your average Senate debate, but really, ifMaine voterswanted to be entertained, they’d have been watching “Raised byWolves” on HBO.

The absoluteworst aspect of third parties is the way they can screw things up for the person most voters would actually prefer. You will perhaps remember that in 2016, candidates fromthe Green Partyandthe Libertarian Party amassed itsy-bitsy vote totals that nevertheless might have deprivedHillary Clinton of just enough support in a few critical states, tossing the presidency to you-know-who.

Some third-party candidates you want to watch out for are the ones with great name recognition and no qualifications. Kanye West is going to be running for president in some states as the one and only candidate of the Birthday Party.

To be fair, there are a lot of parties out there. Lord knowswho their nameswill appealto. InMichigan, where Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is in a tough race, his opponents include candidates from the Republican, Natural Law and U.S. Taxpayers Parties, which certainly gives voters a panorama of possibilities. In Colorado, where Republican Cory Gardner is in a tight spot, the competition includes the Libertarian, Green, Unity and Approval Voting Party.

And don’t forget the Constitution Party, whose presidential nominee, Don Blankenship, is the former CEO of a mining company who spent a year in jail after one of the company’s mines in West Virginia exploded, killing 29 people. Really. He’s on the ballot in 21 states.