Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader said during a speech to ISU students on Wednesday that Democrats and Republicans have become more interested in collecting corporate money than representing the American people.

Nader, who received 2.7 percent of the popular vote nationally as the Green Party candidate in 2000, said recent redistricting efforts in states like Texas have created a system where politicians pick their voters.

“We are moving into a one-party-dominated district or a one-party-dominated state; every year it gets worse and worse,” he said. “So, there isn’t even a separable difference between the two parties of choice, apart from the similarities between the two parties that tower over the dwindling real differences. You can listen to the destruction of our democracy on an installment plan.”

The two parties have allowed more corporate influence in government, he said, because candidates are more concerned with re-election than with the future of the country.

Nader said examples of this lack of concern can be seen in nationwide legal battles his campaign faced in efforts to get on the ballot. The efforts, he said, signal a decline in the leadership of the Democratic party and the decay of the liberal ideology.

“This is the moral bankruptcy of the liberal intelligentsia,” Nader said.

Both parties have been more concerned with raising more money in the campaign than addressing important issues, he said, which has taken the focus off actually getting more people involved in the political process.

Despite the fact that this race proves to be possibly more evenly drawn than the race in 2000, Nader said he will continue to push voters to “vote with their conscience” instead of voting for which candidate may be the lesser of two evils.

“The only vote you throw away is when you vote for someone you don’t agree with,” he said. “The only vote that counts is a vote of conscience.”

Shelby Fevold, freshman in art and design, said she has been a longtime Nader supporter and plans on voting for him in November. Fevold said she didn’t think Nader was a spoiler, because people who vote for him are voting with their conscience instead of voting against a candidate.

Even with that approach, many former supporters have decided to not put their support behind the consumer advocate and, in many cases, have urged Nader to stop his campaign efforts.

In an article published in the “Indian Country Times,” 2000 running mate Winona LaDuke endorsed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry as a “rational alternative to the most destructive administration in recent memory,” despite the fact that she doesn’t agree with the party’s leadership.

Other groups like Greens for Kerry have adopted creative measures to balance Nader’s effect in swing states. The group has been promoting a program called VotePair, which pairs voters in swing states planning on voting for third-party candidates with voters in safe states who plan on voting for a major party candidate.

Sophie Mintier, a spokeswoman for Greens for Kerry, said the program was aiming to allow people the freedom of choice in voting without having a major impact on the election results.

United Progressives for Victory, a group of former Nader supporters, has began taking ads out in swing states, including two ads in The Tribune and the Iowa State Daily, urging voters to support Kerry instead of Nader.