The two co-chairs of the Commission on Presidential Debates, Democrat Michael McCurry and Republican Frank Fahrenkopf, Jr., say they would be pleased if three candidates meet their rules for inclusion in the general election 2016 debates. See this story.
Sort of like, in the 1870s, saying anybody whose grandfather had a right to vote?
Maybe the Democratic and Republican nominees and whichever of the Powerball winners decides to run?
Actually, of course they’d be pleased — because that would be evidence that they don’t have to change their unfair rules. No matter how much who spent to be the third candidate, or how personally famous they already were, or. . . .
You know what would get more people on the debate stage? Getting rid of the polling requirement completely.
If a candidate is on all 50 state ballots, they should be in the debates.
True enough, David, but it shouldn’t even take that. Any candidate on enough ballots to win 270 electoral votes should be in the debates.
One could even argue for considering polls — in this way: if a candidate is high enough in polls for at least some states’ polls (where they are on the ballot) to win some electoral votes, they could keep anyone else from winning a majority, and throw the election into the House of Representatives. If they finish third, they would be within the House’s consideration — and they could become the compromise candidate. Of course, as a practical matter that could include anyone on any state ballot — so use polls to proportion out each state’s electoral votes. So for a candidate to reach the debate stage this way, they’d need big poll numbers in (for example) the Dakotas, but maybe only 7% here in Michigan — or 2% in California.
If you had 6 candidates, you could have 2 debates of 3 candidates each. No polling needed. Now, I don’t know if John Anthony is saying that, in order for a third party candidate to make a debate, maybe we can pull a Germany and say that you either need 5% nationwide or able to reach the electoral threshold (votes/seats+1) in 3 states. If you’re looking for a waiver for the national 15%, you might consider getting the threshold in, say, 8 states.
The brain dead moron media is unable to do any of the Electoral College minority rule gerrymander math —
i.e. about half the votes in about 25 States/DC to elect a minority rule Prez.– since 1832.
i.e. ranking the winner votes / E.C. State/DC E.C. votes — low to high.
IE Obama got de facto elected in 2012 with 30.6 percent of the total votes — in 23 States/DC. — 285 of 538 E.C. Votes.
Obama got a giant 50.6 percent of the total votes in all 50 States/DC — to give illusion of majority rule.
—
Uniform definition of Elector-Voter
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
To be honest, Derek, I was just thinking off the tips of my fingers about how those here in the US who insist on a role for polls could be appeased with the least amount of harm done — which is part of why I set it up as a supplement to what I think is the likely next step as a main rule: being on the ballot in states where one could win a majority of Electoral College votes and be elected.
My thought was that one could appeal to the Twelfth Amendment as a reason to include anyone who could arguably finish in the top three in a race with no electoral-vote majority . . . which of course could mean many more than three candidates. But then, one would probably have to overcome “overcrowding” objections that any Presidential ticket on the ballot in any state could claim to have a chance to finish third, without giving in to the requirement that such a ticket have enough polling support nationwide before the debates to win some states (which seems to me to be the publicly admittable side of the purpose of the 15% rule).
So I thought of using the potential for state-by-state wins of at least _some_ electoral votes, proportionally, as the wedge to do that. Again of course, not every state does award EC votes proportionally — but for the moment I left that fact aside, along with the whole argument about how a state should best divide up its EC votes, whether states which do that enhance or hurt their chances to win campaign attention, etc. (In fact, doing this would mean the *vote-count* threshold for winning any EC votes in a state would be pretty close — perhaps especially if the “Senatorial” votes were allocated separately on the basis of votes statewide.)
Anyway, a sort of electronic thought-experiment . . . not too likely to be tried in real life very soon. (But conducting the experiment, and doing the thinking, might speed it up a little.)