A group of third-party advocates filed a lawsuit this week in an effort to force the Federal Election Commission to change rules for televised presidential debates that prevent independent candidates from sharing the stage with the Republican and Democratic nominees.
According to the group Level the Playing Field, which is backed by wealthy financier Peter Ackerman, the FEC and Commission on Presidential Debates have created a political duopoly by enforcing “anti-competitive rules that prevent Americans from learning about candidates that they might prefer to the candidates of the two major parties.”
Since 2000, the Republican- and Democratic-controlled CPD has required that candidates reach 15 percent in national polls to participate in the presidential debates. For third-party candidates lacking the massive corporate campaign funding and primary election media focus afforded to the Democratic and Republican candidates ahead of the general election debates, the threshold is almost always exclusionary.
The organization’s lawsuit challenges that the debate group is currently violating FEC non-partisanship rules by adhering to debate standards that exclude the third-party candidates.
In an interview with Time, Ackerman noted,” It’s the little rules that nobody can see that make all the difference.”
Level the Playing Field has proposed that the third-party candidate who has the highest polling numbers or is able to gather the most public signatures six months prior to the general election should be included in the debates alongside the Democratic and Republican candidates.
Former New Mexico Gov. and Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, a longtime critic of the debate rules, applauded the lawsuit in an email to supporters Monday.
“In addition to what is now a multi-pronged legal challenge, a critical element of our effort is a grassroots and public awareness campaign to mobilize thousands of Americans to let the FEC, the CPD, debate sponsors and the news media know that the two-party control of the debates must end,” he said. “A majority of Americans today say that NEITHER the Republican nor the Democratic Party represents them. That majority deserves an opportunity to see and hear qualified third party and independent candidates from the national debate stage. ”
In addition to Americans disillusioned with the two-party system, some research suggests that a third-party candidate could win favor with voters who are only casual followers of political news.
One such 2013 study from the University of Michigan suggested that the major political parties have a real interest in keeping third-party candidates off the stage because “apathetic or ambivalent voters” tend to pick a candidate based heavily on televised debate performance.
According to the research, voters who strongly supported a particular candidate going in to the debates usually exhibited little change in preference. But moderates and other voters with no strong preference usually picked a candidate based heavily on the performance of the debaters.
“Despite the white noise of social networks and media, debates truly do make a difference because they are the single biggest electoral event with the largest audience. Because both sides have equal time to make their cases, debates are the most balanced message voters receive over the course of a campaign,” Ben Warner, assistant professor of communication who studies political conversation at MU, said at the time.
The post This lawsuit could get your third-party candidate on the presidential debate stage appeared first on Personal Liberty.
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