A Third Party Presidential Scorecard

Americans rarely embrace a third party. Even a well-funded attempt to build one via the Internet— called Americans Elect — folded this year when too few participated. Heading into November, polling institution Gallup expects little to change. It included candidates from the Libertarian, Green, and Constitution parties in a national poll and found that a mere 5% of voters might opt out of the traditional two-party system. The poll was conducted in June, before the Peace and Freedom Party selected comedian Roseanne Barr as its nominee, but the real excitement for some voters is a dream that Ron Paul will make a sudden outsider bid. Even without his name, the list of possible candidates is potentially long, and states vary wildly on qualifications for candidacy. Here are the candidates on the most ballots and what they say about LGBT rights.

Scoring: Candidates received one point for each LGBT-supportive position, lost one point for each nonsupportive one, and received zero points for each “unanswered, undecided, or unknown.”

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