Evan McMullin has held the position of CIA operations officer and director for the Republican Conference of the House of Representatives. This year McMullin is running as an independent candidate for the United States presidency. McMullin is currently on the ballot in 11 states and is eligible for write-in access in 23 states, including New Jersey.

        McMullin’s campaign is unique because he is the only presidential candidate in the race without an official candidate for vice president on the ballot. Currently listed on the ballot as McMullin’s vice president is the name Nathan Johnson.

“Johnson is a close personal friend of Evan’s who agreed to serve as a placeholder because of the extraordinarily tight time-lines an insurgent campaign like ours entails,” wrote campaign operative Joel Searby on McMullin’s official website.

The main issue for McMullin’s campaign is that in all of the states where he is listed on the ballot, McMullin’s running mate cannot be changed this close to the election. As a result, if McMullin is elected as president, he has chosen to replace Johnson, who has no intention of becoming the vice president. McMullin has selected Mindy Finn as his true running mate. Finn is the founder and president of a bi-partisan organization called Empowered Women.

McMullin announced his candidacy on August 8, 2016. Formerly a Republican, he is running as a conservative alternative to Donald Trump. He is a proponent of supporting the military, as well as standing up for veterans by reforming the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Other stances that McMullin has taken include government accountability, trade and immigration. McMullin believes that the power of government must be brought closer to the people of the United States by putting it in the hands of the states. He also supports expanding global trade to boost the economy. On the topic of immigration, McMullin wants more secure borders for the country. However, McMullin feels that it is not practical to deport all of the illegal immigrants. His plan is to allow these immigrants the opportunity to earn legal status by having them turn themselves in and complete a step-by-step procedure.

To stay up to date with McMullin’s campaign and access a complete list of his positions on prevalent issues, visit the official campaign website at www.evanmcmullin.com.

One of the presidential candidates is a businessman with populist tendencies who wants to shake up Washington DC — and he isn’t named Donald Trump.

Roque De La Fuente is running for the presidency as the nominee for the Reform Party and the American Delta Party. Although the American Delta Party was created during this election cycle as his support vehicle, the Reform Party harkens back to 1995, and was founded by Ross Perot. Perot won nearly 20% of the popular vote in the 1992 general election as an independent.

Rocky, as he prefers, has quite a unique background. Born in 1954, he has spent much of his life between life in southern California and Mexico. After earning degrees in mathematics, physics, business administration and accounting in American and Mexican universities, he went into the car dealership business. Within four years in the industry, he owned one location, and after twenty, he owned 28. Eight years into his career, he became the Chairman of the National Dealer Council.

However, he ultimately sold all but his Cadillac dealership, and then spent the next nine years in court fighting to build the largest flagpole in the United States for an equally gigantic flag. De La Fuente also diversified his business; he opened currency exchanges in 1982 to deal with the nationalization of the Mexican banks, traded large areas of land with the State of California and went into real estate.

During primary season, De La Fuente campaigned as a Progressive Democrat. Although he came in fourth place, he won no delegates. Thus, he was prompted to form his own party to continue into the general election.

His key issue is election reform. He sees three major problems: access, manipulation and fraud. De La Fuente believes in the creation of a single national policy for ballot access, and that all candidates be held to the same standard. He also looks to put all candidates on the same playing field in terms of how their financing is viewed legally. Finally, De La Fuente believes in the use of statistical tools to better formulate how to fight fraud at the polls.

He also holds nuanced views on a variety of issues. To increase government revenue, he believes in cutting down on waste and fraud. He supports pro business policies, but also the continuation of the Affordable Care Act and the use of government support as a way of shaping the economy. Additionally, as a Mexican-American, he is heavily against the sort of border restrictions Donald Trump has suggested and believes in a rational and compassionate policy toward illegal immigrants.

Currently, De La Fuente has access to 147 electoral votes in 20 states. However, he has outlined a way to bring a third party candidate to the presidency, through victory across states within the Rocky Mountains and Alaska, pushing the election to the House. Doubtful as this is, De La Fuente has used his campaign to bring up serious issues and bring question to the wider party system as a representative of rational policy.  https://www.rocky2016.com/

Sick of exploitation based on your sex, gender, race, ethnicity, social class or sexual orientation? Frustrated by the restraints and injustices created by capitalism? Interested in forming a new social and economic order based on community involvement in production, distribution and governance? Want the voting age to be lowered to fifteen? You’re in luck – there’s a party that caters to your needs: the Socialist Party USA. Even better, they have a candidate running for president: Emidio “Mimi” Soltysik.

Soltysik, born in Reading, PA, was educated at Troy University in Alabama and currently lives in Los Angeles, California. Before accepting the presidential nomination from the Socialist National Committee, he worked as an activist for and co-chair of the Socialist Party.

The Socialist Party USA has a Democratic Socialist Agenda under which it “strives to establish a radical democracy that places people’s lives under their own control — a non-racist, classless, feminist socialist society where working people own and control the means of production and distribution through democratically-controlled public agencies, cooperatives, or other collective groups.”

Because Soltysik is a Democratic Socialist, he does not believe in vanguardism – the belief that the most politically savvy and class-conscious members of the proletariat should rise up to create organizations to help guide the masses toward revolutionary politics and serve as manifestations of proletarian power against enemies. He also doesn’t believe in democratic centralism – a Leninist philosophy in which the policy of the political party is centrally decided upon and thus binding for all members.

In essence, what Soltysik believes is that a radical democratic change is needed to create a more egalitarian and fair society. He has a few ideas of how that could be accomplished.

New Jersey Elections 2016: Write-In Emidio Soltysik for President, Vote No on Question #1, and… https://t.co/E4uh0LBvox via @wordpressdotcom

— Soltysik/Walker 2016 (@SocialistRev16) November 6, 2016

Firstly, Soltysik wants to withdraw from and prevent all international trade agreements, including NAFTA.  He supports a 15 dollar minimum wage which will rise as the cost of living rises, a decentralized and democratically organized economic plan and a full employment policy which includes the creation of a guaranteed annual livable income.

In terms of international affairs, he wants the abolition of the NSA, CIA and other government organizations that participate in international covert operations, total disarmament of the United States, and complete withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq. Soltysik also plans to withdraw from NATO and closing all overseas military bases, and cut the military budget by 50 percent. As for the United Nations, he would like the U.S. to pay off its debt to the UN and end its veto power in the UN and its permanent membership on the UN Security Council.

For women, disabled people, members of the LGBTQ+ community and people of color, he says that he recognizes the “intimate link” between their oppression and capitalism and will work to eliminate their hardships through various means.

Sitting rather far left on the political spectrum, the Socialist Party has never won more than six percent of the national vote, and that was with candidate Eugene V. Debs in 1912. Soltysik and his running-mate Angela Nicole Walker are only on the ballot in fewer than twenty states. Most likely, they will not win the election, but some of their basic ideas have certainly begun to gain traction, especially with the popularity of Bernie Sanders. For more information on the Socialist Party and Emidio Soltysik, visit his website: www.rev16.us.

https://www.facebook.com/Rev2016/

During this election cycle, people mainly have four parties in mind: Democratic, Republican, Libertarian and Green. However, when voting on November 8, people should consider the Constitution Party. The ticket for the Constitution Party includes Darrell Castle as the presidential candidate and Scott Bradley as the vice presidential candidate.

Castle and Bradley greatly focus their campaign around the idea of state sovereignty and a literal interpretation of the constitution.

This sort of platform might actually catch on with conservatives who are turning away from Donald Trump. Due to Trump’s radicalness, some voters might shift to the Constitution Party, which was once thought of as overly radical, for a less radical solution. Unlike Trump, who focuses on grand goals like building a wall between Mexico and the United States and banning all Muslims from the United States, the Constitution Party has the traditional conservative goals of giving rights to the states and closely protecting the Bill of Rights.

While at this stage of the election the Constitution Party’s chances of winning are slim, it can be a great detriment to the Trump campaign, as it may take loyal conservative voters who would have otherwise voted for Trump.

This idea of a third party candidate swaying the election is not new. It is widely accepted that Al Gore (Democrat) lost the 2000 election to George Bush (Republican) because many would-be Gore voters decided to vote for Ralph Nader, the Green Party Candidate, instead.

Therefore, while Castle and other third party candidates are unlikely to win the election this year, they can still have a drastic effect on the future of the United States.

http://castle2016.com/home/

Thank you for reading Eastside’s coverage on some of the many third-party candidates running in this upcoming election. Be sure to check out Eastside’s coverage of Election night over on Soundcloud.