If you vote for a third party does it help or hurt the election results?

If you vote for a third party does it help or hurt the election results for Democrats or Republicans.

Goblin:
In principle, it's great. It's why we have democratically elected officials. In reality, it takes votes away from one of the two parties, but that might not be a bad thing.

Paladin:
I don't do it for the Reps or the Dems
I do it for the candidate, if I think it is a better candidate

mrjonessr41:
That is irrelevant, the Vote is a personal choice period.

Scarlet Begonias:
It all depends. When young liberals voted for Ralph Nader instead of Gore in 2000, that hurt Gore's election results. I believe that this helped Bush win. It also can be the other way around. Say a libertarian, republican and democrat were running for the presidency. Some republicans might vote for the libertarian party instead of the republicans. This could hurt the republican party and help the democrats.

wyldfyr:
In 2000 if all the people who voted for Nader had voted for Gore, Bush would never have been President.