On September 20, the General Services Administration denied Gary Johnson’s request a for national security briefing. It says his poll numbers aren’t high enough. Johnson had requested the brief on September 12.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
So manipulation of polls can also determine whether candidates who are on all ballots (or even most of them) get a policy briefing that could help them be on equal footing for the campaign, debates or no debates?
What’s the GSA’s threshold and who set it when?
The threshold is whether the GSA thinks the candidate might win.
One would think, that if the federal government is in the business of predicting who can win and who can’t, that it should be possible to argue that since various minor parties won’t win anyway, there is no need for campaign finance laws to limit how much money can be given to minor parties. The point of campaign finance restrictions is to prevent government elected officials from being influenced by donations. But if the government knows the minor parties aren’t going to win anyway, then there won’t be any potential bribery problem and those limits should be relaxed for minor parties. Also minor parties should not be required to submit candidates for presidential elector, because if the government knows the minor parties won’t carry a state in a presidential election, it doesn’t matter if that minor party names any candidates for presidential elector.
I want a national security briefing! Elmer is going to vote for me.
I want a national security briefing! Bugs is going to vote for me.
Mr. Bugs and Mr. Elmer (can’t believe I’m playing along) are you on enough state ballots to win the election outright? No. That and that alone should be the criteria for who gets security briefings.
Agreed, ballot access should determine it, not polls. But once again, I might be a little more lenient and include candidates on enough state ballots to guarantee themselves a third-place finish and a spot in the House deliberations.
John Anthony La Pietra:P
Any candidate with access to just one electoral vote could in principle force a three-way selection in the House. Because every election after 1976 has had only two candidates earn any electoral votes, a candidate that could earn even one electoral vote might possibly be the third candidate in a three-way House vote – and the Constitution allows the House to select such a person as President. That means that any candidate with any ballot access at all would get a security briefing under your standard, which is not in fact desirable – and in practice would result in states raising their ballot access standards so that they couldn’t be used as an avenue for “eccentrics” to compel the receipt of a classified security briefing. It’s not a good idea to broaden the electoral standards for this, though the polling requirement is dubious.
@John Yaya: My suggested standard is that anyone who’s eligible to win 1/4 of the EC votes should be (a) in the debates and (b) briefed. I say 1/4 because a Candidate X with that many EC votes (135) is assured of being no worse than third place — and therefore assured of a spot in the House deliberations. Even if two other candidates Y and Z are tied with X, that takes up 405 EC votes and leaves only 133 left for anybody else.
One EC vote *could* get a candidate into the House deliberations — but 135 would guarantee it. That’s the difference.
If that standard were applied this year, then by my count Johnson (on 51 ballots for 538 EC votes), Stein (45/480), Castle (23/202), and de la Fuente (20/147) would qualify. McMullin (11/84) would not — nor would LaRiva of the PSL (8/113) or Kennedy of the SWP (7/71), though the 11 states where either one is on add up to 140 EC votes. (Not considering that Soltisyk would add MI’s 16 EC votes to such a theoretical Socialist Coalition, and Moorehead Wisconsin’s 10 — or that a coalition might have reached the ballot in other states as well.)
How many ENEMY regimes hacking into the communication systems of Clinton and Trump ???
i.e. NO briefings for ANY of them until a Prez is chosen.
AMcCawick –
There’s a typo in yow post. You meant pohwing ovuh 15% in a sufficient numbuh of states to theoweticawy win the Electowa Cowege, wight?
I agwee with that.