Libertarian Candidate Gary Johnson’s 1.2 Million Votes is highest yet for a Libertarian candidate for President — vote totals of all “Third Party” and independent candidates can be expected to easily exceed Two Million Votes after all of the votes are finally tallied

Even though the winner of the 2012 Presidential election had been decided before midnight on Election Day, the long term impact of Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson’s run is still being evaluated. One thing that is known is that Johnson garnered well over a million votes and topped all of the other “Third Party” presidential candidates on the ballot in the 2012

The nearly 1.2 million votes won by Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson, a former two-term Republican New Mexico governor, reflected earlier public-opinion polls that showed  "consistently that a majority of Americans want less government than we have today," said Libertarian Party Executive Director Carla Howell shortly after the results of the 2012 election became known. At that time, Howell also said the Libertarian Party, whose slogan is "minimum government, maximum freedom,"  planned to move forward by seeking to enlarge the national footprint of the Libertarian Party perhaps through alliances with supporters of U.S. Representive Ron Paul, who had been a candidate for the Republican  nomination for president and who had been widely known for his libertarian positions.

Johnson’s  nationwide vote count was the highest vote count of the minor-party candidates. Johnson’s Libertarian party vote represented about 1.2 % of the total popular presidential vote in the 48 states where Johnson was on the ballot. Johnson’s name did not appear on the ballots for the voters in Michigan and Oklahoma. The 2012 Libertarian nominee’s  vote count also beat the previous Libertarian Party record, set in 1980 by lawyer-politician Ed Clark, of 921,128 votes, then about 1 percent of the nationwide total.

Green Party Candidate Jill Stein, a 62-year-old Massachusetts physician and former Green Party candidate for Governor in Massachusetts, tallied the second-highest vote count of the minor-party presidential nominees. After the election Green Party Media Coordinator Scott McLarty  said that Stein "did less than we expected" in Tuesday's election. She garnered more than 400,000 votes in 37 states, or an average of about ½  percent of the vote of  those states' presidential vote tallies.

Constitution Party nominee and former GOP Congressman from Virginia, Virgil Goode got 118,858 votes in the forty-four states where he ran; the highest number of votes cast for Goode was in Michigan.

Rounding out the field of formal "Third Party" Candidates was Justice Party nominee and former Democratic Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, whose national vote total was not reported.

The Village Voice also did a report on several of the non-major party candidates and independent candidacies, giving vote totals from rather early in the evening, as follows:
“Yes, there are actually people who aren't in the two main parties who have their own ideas about fixing this country, who had the courage to run for president. Number 3, behind Obama and Romney, was Gary Johnson, a Libertarian who had 348,000 votes by 9:47 p.m. Not bad for raising only $1 million bucks.... Jill Stein, a Green Party candidate who backs job creation through environmental initiatives, was running fourth with 98,000 votes.... Virgil Goode, great name by the way, the conservative party candidate and former Virginia congressman with basically three staffers, got 31,230 votes.... Roseanne Barr, the comedian who says 'the war on drugs is just plain crazy,' won 10,000 votes.... Randall Terry, an anti-abortion activist, got 8,700 votes.... Rocky Anderson, another great name, a former Salt Lake City mayor and a lawyer who skews liberal, got 7,800 votes.... Richard Duncan, an Ohio ex-postal worker who wants to avert nuclear attacks by terrorists, got 6,400 votes.... Tom Stevens, the "objectivist" party candidate and a historian, got 3,500 votes.... Stewart Alexander, the socialist party USA candidate, got 2,000 votes.... Pete Lindsay, an anti war activist, got 1,520 votes....  Merlin Miller, who says 'are you tired of the two-party system,' got 1,475 votes.... Tom Hoelfing, not such a great name, the America's party candidate who says 'I don't want your money,' got just over 1,000 votes.... And then we come to Jeff Boss, our favorite candidate who believes the National Security Agency paid people off to allow the 9/11 attacks to happen. He got 263 votes. Impressive!... ” (By simple ratio comparison of the Village Voice’s early evening tallies with the later results obtained by Johnson, Stein and Goode, its fair to concluded that all of the “Third Party” candidates probably obtained well over two million votes in 2012).