With election day approaching everybody has been talking about the Presidential candidates. Scandals can get easily misconstrued and biased. Read the unbiased facts and take a poll to see where you stand with other students at Oak Park.

Both the Republican and the Democratic candidates every election season get the most publicity of the candidates. But what about third party candidates? In this year’s election, voters have quite the variety.

Jill Stein is a doctor from Massachusetts.  She graduated from Harvard Medical School and throughout the 1990s she was known for her work as a medical professional, but also for her environmentalist concerns. Stein is the Green Oarty candidate in this year’s election, so she focuses primarily on green initiatives.  This includes starting programs to help stop global warming and finding ways to get clean water for everyone. However, Stein also believes in affordable healthcare for everyone, starting programs to end poverty in the United States, and also creating new ways to help workers find good paying jobs. Stein is also known for her “anti-science campaign.”  In several interviews, Stein told the public she’s not sure if vaccinations are safe.  Which is an issue that the public has been arguing about for decades, yet even as a professional physician she disagrees with specific vaccinations.  Stein also believes all GMOs need to be labeled until “proven safe.”  Read more about her interviews and platforms by clicking here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jill-steins-dangerous-anti-science-campaign_us_57a92f2ce4b02251db3ff3a8 and here http://www.jill2016.com.

If you don’t like Stein’s platforms you might like Gary Johnson. Johnson is the Governor of New Mexico and the Libertarian Party candidate in this year’s election.  Johnson’s platforms mostly consist of economic improvements such as changing the government’s spending policies, which Johnson believes to be wasteful, changing the federal tax code to be more efficient, starting new job initiatives and other economic issues.  Johnson also believes in other issues involving access to good education, fighting the war on drugs, and supporting veterans.  Many people find Johnson to be undereducated for the job after an interview that caused Johnson to stumble.  When the interviewer asked Johnson about the situation in Aleppo, Johnson asked, “What is that?” While the general public might not know Aleppo is the capital of Syria, the interview was about the situation in Syria, Johnson supporters took a step back and asked whether Johnson was qualified for the position.  Yet, even after several interviews gone wrong Johnson is still in the lead among third party candidates polling at around 6 percent. Read more on Johnson’s platforms here: https://www.johnsonweld.com/issues.

Within the past couple weeks, Donald Trump has jumped into some controversial waters with the release of a recording that involved Trump talking to Billy Bush, co-host of Access Hollywood at the time, while using vulgar words and describing sexually assaulting women. The Trump campaign denies that he was describing sexually assaulting women, the recording has still caused uproar among women voters possibly swaying the election this November. In other news, Trump has continued to try to persuade minority voters to vote for him Nov. 8 by trying to “connect” to them. His latest attempt was at the final debate when referring to specific Hispanics as “bad Hombres.”  It might seem mild compared to other things Trump has said but none the less it still caused Hispanics to sit uneasy after the debate that Wednesday night.  Carolina Moreno from the Huffington Post describes Trump’s reference as “offensive” and “wrong.” Read her full article here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/heres-why-trumps-bad-hombres-comment-was-so-offensive_us_5808e121e4b0180a36e9b995, People all over the country agree with her and Twitter saw the backlash for days after the debate. Regardless of Trump’s many scandals he does have quite a few platforms and issues he is very passionate about.  His biggest platforms include; a new tax plan, national defense plans, immigration and trade regulations.  However, Trump has also proposed plans for education, energy, and child care amongst other things.  To read more of Trump’s proposed plans click here https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/.

Now for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee in the 2016 election.  While there is no argument Clinton has more political experience than the other candidates that doesn’t mean choosing Clinton as our next president is that easy for the millions of Americans puzzled by this year’s election.  Like Trump, Clinton too has had quite a few scandals this election.  The big one that continues to come up is the emails. A few months ago Clinton was investigated over the fact she sent classified e-mails over a personal server allowing other countries to hack her account and see these e-mails possibly causing a threat.  However, after the investigation professionals stated that she did nothing illegal so she was not charged with anything and continued on with her campaign.  Since then Americans have had a hard time trusting Clinton. Clinton’s main focuses this election include plans for clean renewable energy, justice and equality for women and other minorities, and access to good education everywhere in the United States.  Of course, like Turmp, she has lots of plans that she is also very passionate about. These can be found here https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/.

With candidates constantly tearing the other apart, Americans across the country are ready for the election to be over.