Why Do Voters Have To Vote By Rejection Over Choice?

Introduction
How do voters make their choice when they don't like anyone on the ballot? Throughout the previous elections, voters have either had a preference for one candidate over the other, if not they voted for the candidate based on their party affiliation. However, in this upcoming election both candidates, Trump and Clinton, have shown the lowest favorability ratings in history. As a result, this forces voters to cast their vote not based on preference, but rather vote based on rejection over choice, vote for third parties, or simply not vote at all in this election.

Rejection Over Choice
Study by behavioral scientists has shown that when humans are presented with a list of bad choice they reject the choices they dislike the most and eventually come down to one single answer. This same situation will most likely be seen in this upcoming election. Voters will vote by rejecting rather than choosing based on preference. As a result, this might prove to be quite beneficial because voters who choose by rejection are most likely going to be more deliberate. The more deliberate they are the more of an accurate decision they will be able to make by disregarding party affiliation, unimportant information, or any rumors about the candidate. Thus, this is one of the ways voters across the nation may choose to vote in this election if neither

candidate is appealing to them.(Krishna,Sokolova)

Third Parties
When neither candidate from the major parties are appealing to voters, voters will most likely go and cast their vote for other third party candidates as a protest vote in order to send a message to high political elites that they prefer neither of the two candidates.

As a result, they will cast their vote to third parties in order to feel morally correct and to not sacrifice anything in return. Although casting for third party candidates will not be much of a difference to the overall election, it will, however, send out a message to the whole nation of how Trump and Clinton are both bad candidates for the

presidency.(Roller)

No Vote
Already the voter turnout for presidential elections is between 40%-50%. And now with the upcoming election voters will most likely prefer to not vote because neither candidate is appealing to them. As a result, decreasing the voter turnout even more. Voters will convince themselves to not cast their vote by knowing that either way a bad candidate will be chosen for the presidency. Therefore, might as well just not waste time to go, and cast my vote for either Trump or Clinton.

Conclusion
Based on previous presidential election voters were able to cast their vote based on preference or party affiliation. However, since both Trump and Hillary both have the lowest favorability ratings in presidential elections, voters will most likely set out to cast their vote based on other strategies. For example, voting based on rejection over choice, voting for third parties, or to not vote at all in this election.