News Photo by Steve Schulwitz Alpena County Clerk Bonnie Friedrichs pulls down a large binder of past voting results earlier this week. Voting data from the Clerk’s Office shows a dip in the number of people who voted for third-party candidates in November compared to the 2016 presidential election.

ALPENA — In Alpena County, support for third-party candidates has slipped since 2016, but third-party voters and leaders hope the numbers will rebound as some voters tire of only having two major options to choose from.

In the 2016 presidential election, third-party candidates had solid support in Alpena County, but still finished well behind the eventual winners.

President Donald Trump, a Repubican, ran away with the contest in the county, with Democrat Hillary Clinton finishing a distant second, but candidates from the smaller parties did have respectable showings.

According to election data from the county Clerk’s Office, Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson received 498 votes, 3% of the overall vote. Green Party candidate Jill Stein got 160 votes for 1% of the vote.

There were 279 straight-ticket ballots filed for third-party candidates.

Last month, however, 161 straight-party ballots cast for third parties were counted.

Even those higher 2016 totals may seem insignificant, but party leaders say they are a step in the right direction and hope the margins will tighten in future elections.

Robin Laurain is the co-chair of the Green Party of Michigan. She said the party finds it hard to compete because it does not accept political donations from corporations or from political action committees. To counter a lack of funds, the party focuses on connecting with and luring people who don’t vote or don’t identify with a party to support them.

“We need to tap into the non-voting base, because most people who relate to being a Republican or Democrat will most often stay where they are,” Laurain said. “We need to keep our focus on the next generation of voters, and we are seeing an increase in the number of first- time voters who are choosing our candidates.”

The vote totals for third-party candidates in Alpena County slipped in the gubernatorial election in 2018, and again in the 2020 November presidential election.

Libertrian Jo Jorgenson received 220 votes, while Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins only got 28.

Laurain said that was a trend nationwide, as many third-party voters returned to the major parties because they wanted to vote for former Vice President Joe Biden to keep Trump from winning a second term.

“I had a lot of them tell me that was their intention,” she said. “I believe most of them will come back to us, though.”

Resident John Dupree said he is independent who has voted for both Democrats and Republicans over the years.

In recent elections, he has voted more often for a third-party option after learning more about them, Dupree said. He added that, because information on candidates is often scarce, he had to do his own homework to learn more about the candidates.

“You don’t hear as much about them, but they all have websites and Facebook pages that can help you see what they are all about,” Dupree said. “Third-party candidates aren’t in your face as much as the more mainstream ones, but there are ways to find out about them.”

Dupree said it is wrong that third-party candidates are usually excluded from forums and debates. He said he believes they would have stronger showings at the polls if they had ample time to get their message out and had larger platforms available to them to share their messages.

“It is almost like they are being kept down intentionally,” he said. “They deserve as much of an opportunity as any of the other candidates.”

Third-party candidates don’t struggle to gain support because their platform or message isn’t in-line with many voters, Laurain, of the Green Party, said. Often it is because they fall well behind the larger political parties in fundraising, which limits what a campaign can do to promote its candidates.

“We bring up a lot of issues that other party candidates don’t like to address, like Palestine and the constant attack it is under from Israel,” she said.

Alpena Community College political science instructor Tim Kuehnlein said most voters aren’t associated with a political party, but normally vote for either a Democrat or a Republican. He added that, like it or not, voting for a third party has political ramifications on which of the two primary parties hold power.

“Two parties dominate our system and often seek to control our system” he said. “To make things worse, third-party voting is not prevalent and ill-advised in our winner-take-all elections. Third-party candidates rarely win anything, and therefore the inertia towards a two-party system in America persists.”

Laurain, Michigan Green Party co-chair, said the predominantly two-party system has caused quality third-party candidates to exodus the smaller parties and gravitate to either the Republican or Democratic side.

She said they understand their chances of winning increase significantly if they run under the red or blue banner. She said it is also a chore for third parties or their candidates to get on the ballot each election.

In Michigan, candidates must meet a vote benchmark to remain eligible to remain on the ballot. In other states, it is much more difficult, and small parties often have to navigate an unfair set of regulations to even have a candidate on the ballot, Laurain said.

“It is easy in Michigan, but that isn’t the case in other states,” she said. “Really, this isn’t a very democratic process, because you should be able to vote for who you want. Instead, they want to keep people boxed in and vote for a Republican or Democrat.”

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Third-party presidential votes

A look at votes for third-party presidential candidates in Alpena County.

Libertarian UST Green NLP Total

2012 N/A 60 87 20 167

2016 498 53 160 10 721

2020 220 26 28 6 280

Source: Alpena County Clerk’s Office