Is a third-party vote a wasted vote? Voting the lesser of two evils

By Clarke Forsythe, Op-ed Contributor Saturday, October 24, 2026

Principled pro-life voters may face a difficult choice at election time. The candidates on our ballot may not be ideal, yet for each office only one will win. When presented with one or several less-than-ideal candidates, voting against the worst choice is reasonable and morally justified. In his day, Abraham Lincoln made that case, as well. 

For example, Evangelical Christians were criticized after the 2016 election for voting for Donald Trump. Many critics, however, ignored two essential factors: when did Evangelicals move to Trump and why. Trump was not the favorite of Evangelicals during the presidential primaries; most, if not all, were split between the other primary candidates. Only when the contest became Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump did many Evangelicals move to Trump. They chose Trump over Clinton as the lesser of two evils.

That is an essential ethical principle that needs to be better understood.  

The ethics of voting starts with four realities.

Seek good, avoid evil. This is the first principle of ethics, in fact, the first principle of practical reason. It applies to the act of voting.

Limited choices. Our political system and laws limit our choices beyond our control. But we still have an important choice to make.

Limited or false information. Candidates tell us what they want us to know. We may not have much information about their character or policies. Or, they may be new to electoral politics and have no record of holding office by which to judge them.

Multiple issues. A ballot initiative typically targets one issue, like taxes. But we typically judge candidates on multiple issues.

It may be difficult to decide which is the “better” candidate, or who is the “lesser of two evils,” or whose term in office might produce a “greater good.”

We may reach a more confident conclusion by asking the same question in a different way, “who is the worst?”

Hillsdale College Professor Nathan Schlueter makes the case clearly: “Voters have a moral obligation to vote for the candidate that is most likely to promote the common good, or most likely to do the lesser harm to the common good …Voting always requires a weighing of circumstances. The paramount question for the conscientious voter is which outcome among the feasible alternatives will promote the greatest good or prevent the greatest harm?”

As Lincoln framed the question in his day, “the true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good. There are few things wholly evil, or wholly good.  Almost everything, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.”

Voting against the worst is not a compromise. A compromise is “a mutual concession to reach an agreement.” Limited electoral choices are imposed upon us. We are compelled to make a decision between the choices that are actually in front of us.

As Schlueter has written, thinking that we cannot vote for any imperfect candidate because it compromises our convictions fails “to distinguish between degrees of cooperation in moral choice.” We are not responsible for everything a candidate stands for or for every future decision made by the candidate.

“We must distinguish multiple levels of cooperation with evil. We distinguish between formal and informal, mediate and immediate types of cooperation. Formal cooperation means that the person intends the same end as the person with whom he or she is cooperating. Informal cooperation means the person does not intend the evil end of the person with whom he or she is cooperating; the extent of moral culpability depends upon the immediacy of the help offered to the person committing the immoral act. Immediate informal cooperation is thus illicit even though the evil is not intended. At some point immediate informal cooperation becomes mediate and lessens significantly in culpability. That is, there is some point at which your cooperation with evil intentions is so attenuated that you are no longer culpable for the deeds of the evil doer.” 

Sometimes there will be three candidates on the ballot. The temptation may be to opt for a third candidate instead of making a harder choice between the two candidates who actually have a reasonable chance of winning.

Independent candidates rarely win but may garner enough votes to have an impact in helping one of the two top candidates win. It’s better to make the choice of the top two intentionally than leave it to be done capriciously by the unknowable number of votes that might be given to an independent candidate. The critical comparison is between the two candidates most likely to win.

Let me give two historical examples — the presidential elections of 1844 and 1856.

The 1844 presidential election pitted the Whig Henry Clay against Democrat James K. Polk. Polk (who supported the annexation of Texas as a slave state) beat Clay (who opposed annexation) by just 38,792 votes.

Clay considered slavery an evil but also owned slaves. Polk was a Tennessee slaveholder who, as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1836, had supported a rule that “automatically tabled all anti-slavery petitions.” Polk was even more pro-slavery than Clay and favored the annexation of Texas to expand slavery, which Clay opposed.

But there was a third-party spoiler in Liberty Party candidate James G. Birney who opposed slavery entirely. He garnered a total of 62,263 votes. It is plausible to say that votes for Birney put Polk into the White House. As Sean Wilentz recorded in The Rise of American Democracy, “Had only a modest proportion of the Liberty Party’s New York vote of nearly 16,000 gone instead to the Whigs, Henry Clay would have been elected president.”

Abraham Lincoln’s comments to Williamson Durley after that election help to frame the ethical choice:

“If the whig abolitionists of New York had voted with us last fall, Mr. Clay would now be president, whig principles in the ascendant, and [the slave state] Texas not annexed; whereas by the division, all that either had at stake in the contest, was lost. And, indeed, it was extremely probable, beforehand, that such would be the result. As I always understood, the Liberty-men deprecated the annexation of Texas extremely; and, this being so, why they should refuse to so cast their votes as to prevent it, even to me, seemed [full of wonder].”

Responding to the notion that Christians should “not to do evil that good may come,” Lincoln wrote:

“If by your votes you could have prevented the extention, &c. of slavery, would it not have been good and not evil so to have used your votes, even though it involved casting of them for a slaveholder? By the fruit the tree is to be known. An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit. If the fruit of electing Mr. Clay would have been to prevent the extension of slavery, could the act of electing have been evil?”

Another example came eight years later, in the election of 1856. The Democrat nominee was Buchanan, the Republican nominee was John Fremont, and the disintegrating Whig party nominated Millard Fillmore. As Allen Guelzo described it, “Fillmore had little chance of winning the presidency, but Lincoln knew that he stood in a good way to prevent hesitant anti-slavery Whigs from deserting the party for the Republican fusionists, thus dividing the anti-Nebraska opposition and handing the election to (Buchanan).”  

Lincoln argued “be not deceived. Buchanan is the hard horse to beat in this race. Let him have Illinois and nothing can beat him; and he will get Illinois, if men persist in throwing away votes upon Mr. Fillmore.” Lincoln was right, and the most pro-slavery candidate, Buchanan, won.

As Lincoln said, voting for the third-party candidate in 1856 meant “throwing away” one’s vote. The two candidates with the realistic possibility of winning is the real election. Either of them will most likely govern, and the choice between them is the only consequential one. Since a third or independent candidate most likely will not win but can only shed votes from one of the major candidates, voting independent means not engaging with the major candidates and not making the hard decision for the better or against the worst.

Because of the dynamics of the U.S. system, independent voting means not making a choice between the only two candidates who have the real chance of being elected.

While there are risks in any electoral choice, they are likely greater when we are faced with voting against the worst. Voting against the worst may eventually pinch. The risk may be high that we will be disappointed by some decision made by the lackluster candidate we voted for. But we will always be able to remind ourselves that we voted against the worst to prevent the greater harm.