{"id":211980,"date":"2016-11-08T12:52:56","date_gmt":"2016-11-08T19:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=211980"},"modified":"2016-11-08T15:22:12","modified_gmt":"2016-11-08T22:22:12","slug":"some-las-crucens-hope-third-party-votes-will-help-change-the-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/11\/some-las-crucens-hope-third-party-votes-will-help-change-the-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Las Crucens hope third-party votes will help change the system"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Third-party

Billy Huntsman \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p>

Christine Gilbert and Andrew Cuellar of Las Cruces, left, voted for Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson on Tuesday. Josh and Sarah Cuellar, right, voted for Evan McMullin, presidential nominee for the Better for America Party.<\/p><\/div>\n

Sarah and Josh Cuellar of Las Cruces don\u2019t think third-party presidential candidate Evan McMullin has much chance of winning this election. They voted Tuesday for McMullin, Josh\u00a0said, in \u201cactive protest\u201d of the major-party options.<\/p>\n

Josh said he \u201cdidn\u2019t find a place\u201d with Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton. Sarah agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just not much in either candidate that represents us at all,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The two voted just after polls opened at 7 a.m. at Good Samaritan Social Center in Las Cruces. Do\u00f1a Ana County Clerk Lynn Ellins reported a busy Election Day countywide, but there was no line at Good Samaritan when Josh and Sarah voted.<\/p>\n

How many New Mexicans reject Clinton and Trump in favor of third-party choices won\u2019t be clear until after election results are tallied. While 2016 may be the best year for third-party candidates in two decades, recent polls have shown support in New Mexico for Libertarian Gary Johnson slipping<\/a> and support for all other third-party candidates combined, including McMullin, hovering around 1-3 percent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Josh\u2019s brother Andrew Cuellar and his fianc\u00e9e, Christine Gilbert, also voted for a third-party presidential candidate at Good Samaritan early Tuesday. But they opted to support Johnson.<\/p>\n

Christine once considered herself a Republican but now calls herself an independent. \u201cWe don\u2019t agree with either Trump or Hillary, and we didn\u2019t want to get locked into having to choose one or the other,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Christine said she hopes this election will give third-party options more exposure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of talk of changing our two-party system, and there\u2019s a lot of people that are really frustrated with it,\u201d Christine said. \u201cUp until this point, I hadn\u2019t really thought it was a possibility to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of all the presidential candidates on the ballot this year other than Clinton and Trump, Johnson has the greatest chance of helping build a more influential third party, if polls are to be believed. If Johnson wins 5 percent of the vote in New Mexico, the Libertarian Party has the ability to attain major-party status<\/a> in the state and gain the same easier ballot access that Democrats and Republicans enjoy.<\/p>\n

McMullin\u2019s brand-new Better for America Party, meanwhile, is largely funded by an ally of 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, The New York Times reported<\/a> in June 2016. It\u2019s part of an effort on the right to stop Trump from becoming president.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the reason I voted third-party is to give a voice to other options,\u201d Josh said.<\/p>\n

Sarah said she believes third parties will become more prominent in the United States. The two major parties don\u2019t represent younger voters, she said \u2013 adding that \u201cthe majority of our close friends feel similarly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christine said she and her fianc\u00e9 are nervous about the future, given that Trump or Clinton will probably win the election. While they have faith that God will protect the country, \u201cthat doesn\u2019t mean that we don\u2019t have a responsibility to be wise about how we vote,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

All four young people spoke about the importance of character and morals. Sarah said she and her husband don\u2019t always agree with McMullin, but they do more often than they agree with Clinton or Trump.<\/p>\n

McMullin\u2019s proposals, from his website<\/a>, include creating a more fair and simple tax code; encouraging business innovation; repealing Obamacare and replacing it with \u201ca more streamlined, pro-market approach to insurance;\u201d working to reduce unintended pregnancies and encourage adoption; and protecting \u201cthe rights of law-abiding gun-owners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most importantly, Sarah said, McMullin has the \u201cprofessionalism\u201d she thinks Trump and Clinton lack.<\/p>\n

Andrew and Christine agreed that character matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir conduct and how they behave in general as a person is really important, because you can say anything when you\u2019re running to get people\u2019s vote,\u201d Christine said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah and Josh Cuellar of Las Cruces voted Tuesday for third-party presidential candidate Evan McMullin. Josh\u2019s brother Andrew Cuellar and his fianc\u00e9e, Christine Gilbert, voted for Libertarian Gary Johnson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2959,"featured_media":211984,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[708,3307,297,3308,145,226,116],"class_list":["post-211980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2016-election","tag-donald-trump","tag-gary-johnson","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-las-cruces","tag-presidential-race","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2959"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}