During this election cycle, IVN covered third party candidates to ensure voters could access information about the wide range of choices they had at the ballot box.
Gary Johnson, from the Libertarian Party, received 1,139,562 votes which represents 0.9% of the popular vote. He is the third party candidate who has done the best this year, but fell far short of the 5% needed to receive public funding for the 2016 Libertarian candidate. He is, however, the most successful Libertarian Party candidate in the history of the party. He performed best in : New Mexico, is home state, with 3.5% of the votes, Montana with 2.9%, Alaska with 2.5%, Wyoming 2.2% and Maine 2.0%.
Jill Stein received 396,684 votes, representing 0.3% of the popular vote. Dr. Stein and Gov. Johnson are the only candidates to reach more than 0.1% of the votes. They were the only two candidates with their name on most of the ballots, with 48 states and 1 write-in for Gov. Johnson and 38 states and 7 write-in for Dr. Stein.
She performed best in: Maine, 1.3% of the votes, Oregon 1.1%, Alaska 1.0%, Arkansas 0.9%, West Virginia 0.7% and Idaho 0.7%.
Rocky Anderson, of the Justice Party, received 34,521 votes which represents <1% of the popular vote. The Justice Party was created this year, making it the first time a Justice Party candidate participated in a general election. Rocky Anderson managed to be on the ballot in 14 states and and be in write in 19. He performed best in: Utah with 0.5% of the votes, Idaho with 0.4%, Vermont with 0.4%, Connecticut with 0.4% and Oregon with 0.2% of the vote.
Virgil Goode, of the Constitution Party, received 4,130 votes,which represents <1% of the popular vote. He was on the ballot in 26 states and as a write-in in 13 states.
He performed best in: South Dakota with 0.7% of the votes , Wyoming with 0,6%, Virginia with 0.4%, North Dakota with 0.4% and Idaho with 0.3%.
These were the candidates that were on the ballot in an important number of states. Many other candidates were on the ballot in a couple of states. The top performers were: Roseanne Barr with 50,000 votes, mostly in California; Thomas Hoefling with 28,982 votes, mostly in California and Colorado.
No third party candidate received more than 1% in the 2012 election, highlighting the strength of the two main parties.
Watch Gary Johnson and Jill Still Square off on IVN:
http://youtu.be/DZAlj0r9HKM