Story by Tristan Jackson

The 2016 presidential election process is winding down, and some people are basing their decision on who they think is the least awful out of the two candidates at the top, rather than what they find positive about them.

My question is, why are we not seriously considering a third-party candidate? More specifically, why not a Green Party candidate like Jill Stein?

Stein, a Harvard graduate, finished medical school in 1979. She also earned a Bachelor’s in Psychology in 1973, earning Magna Cum Laude honors the same year.

Stein got her start in politics when she ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002. Her experience came from her time working as a doctor, where she saw how broken the health care system had become.

She got into politics because she feared for the future of her children, and other children, because of preventable epidemics, such as diabetes and cancer. On top of that, she feared for the irreversible damage being done to the environment.

Being a Green Party candidate, one of Stein’s main focuses is the environment. She plans on moving towards clean renewable energy, such as wind and solar, to conserve the earth we live on, and hopefully reverse damage already done from the overuse of fossil fuels and coal.

The plan she has laid out would create millions of jobs in the United States, and if all goes according to plan, Americans would be 100-percent transitioned to renewable energy by 2030.

She wants to cut defense spending by 50-percent, where the United States spent a whopping $598.5 billion in 2015 alone. To put that number into perspective, defense spending accounted for 54-percent of all federal spending, while education received just under $70 billion, or just 6-percent.

Stein also has big plans socially, as she wants to strengthen women’s rights, protect the LGBT community, and make sure corruption within our police system is stopped.

This may leave one wondering: why is Jill Stein not on top of the polls? She’s never been labeled a racist. She’s never put our national security at risk. She’s never said anything demeaning about someone because of their gender, or any other physical quality.

There has to be some reason why people are gambling on two potentially awful candidates while Jill Stein, probably the most put-together candidate in the race, is virtually out of the running.

Voters can blame many things, but if Jill Stein was in the news more, she’d probably stand a better chance. There’s not a lack of news produced by Stein herself — the problem is she hasn’t been in the news enough for most people to even know what she stands for.

Jill Stein, a candidate for president, was forced to leave the site of the first debate for holding an interview. That doesn’t sound like a lack of media coverage to me, but rather media corruption.

Thanks to the media in our country, Jill Stein will lose. It’s really a shame that a women who’s main focus is making sure our world is livable in the future, can’t even get her foot in the door of the race or a debate.

We should be looking at our first female president in the United States come next January, and it shouldn’t be Hillary Clinton. If change and sustainable growth are what you’re looking for, Jill Stein is the way to go.