Third-party candidates should be included in presidential debates

If the presidential debates included Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, that could flip the whole election to a race between those two.

The public has the right to know about alternatives to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, who are the most disliked candidates in our history.

Unfortunately, the Commission on Presidential Debates makes it difficult for third-party candidates to be known by insisting that one has to get 15 percent in the polls to be included in the debates. This arbitrary polling number deprives voters the right to know about the candidates.

The Democrats and Republicans created the commission to remove control of the debates from the League of Women voters, which resigned in 1989, calling the commission “a fraud on the American voter.” Since that time, the debates have been set up to protect the establishment parties from competition.

The commission hurts democracy by keeping third-party candidates out of the debates. More voters are registered as independent than Democrat or Republican, yet independent voices are repressed. It’s only fair the debates include all candidates who are on enough ballots to be able to win the election.

This story was originally published September 23, 2016 at 7:18 PM with the headline "Third-party candidates should be included in presidential debates."