On June 17, the Annenberg Working Group on Presidential Campaign Debate Reform issued this set of recommendations for changes in general election presidential debates. The Working Group did not come to a consensus on changing the rules on who may participate. But a majority of the Working Group recommends that the poll threshold for the first general election debate should be lowered from the current 15%, to 10%. The 15% would remain in place for the second debate, and the third and final debate would have a 25% threshold.

The Working Group as a whole believes that the debate sponsor should announce in advance which polls will be used to measure who can participate. It also believes that the rules should explain what will happen if a candidate is right at the threshold, within the margin of error. Thanks to Political Wire for the link. The New York Times has a story about the report, but the New York Times story omits any mention of the part of the report dealing with inclusion.