The Salt Lake City Tribune appears to be the first daily newspaper to announce that Gary Johnson and Jill Stein will be suing the Commission on Presidential Debates. The lawsuit will be filed in January 2015. The Salt Lake City Tribune’s interest in the lawsuit is greater than it would normally be, because former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson will be one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs. The article says another attorney on the case is Bruce Fein, who worked for President Ronald Reagan in the past. See the story here.
Constitution Party would have qualified under these criteria in 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008. The only times it would have missed would be in its first try in 1992, and in 2012, just barely.
Mike
Are those facts? Maybe, maybe not, but you haven’t given any evidence for them. And if they are facts, you haven’t given us any any plan of what to do about it. So, any evidence for your alleged facts or things you plan to do and/or want other people to do if they come to agree with you?
The fact is they will never allow any real people in the fake elections. The only parade their puppets in front of you and a few paid actors to make it look good.
The fact is the elections are nothing more than a pacifier dog and pony show for the masses. All designed to give the people the delusion they have a choice and get to participate when the outcome was decided long before a single vote is ever cast.
They are appoi ted not elected
Pretty sure the CP would have qualified the last few elections before that and had some close misses in attempts to get on state ballots in 2012 as well, so could well have made the 270 cut that time too.
I doubt it, but we’ll see. “Not more than 5” is a reasonable assumption for the foreseeable future. I didn’t realize Goode had gotten that close, though- 257 EVs.
I’m still a little bit uncomfortable with the pure 270 EV standard. It does have a certain obvious logic, and there are good arguments against requiring 50+DC so one or two holdout states can’t spoil it, but I still think a legitimate case can be for excluding candidates who won’t be on the ballot for a substantial fraction of the population. Jill Stein, iirc, was on the ballot for 83% of the population. Johnson was on the ballot for 96% of the population. I don’t have the figure for Goode available, but if somebody wants to do the calculation I’m sure it would have been well below 60% even if he had manged to get the one or two states to get over 270EVs.
Perhaps it should be an additional requirement that the states which the candidate is on the ballot, compromise a majority, or even a super-majority of 75%+, of the population as well as a majority of the EC.
Including one or two major-minor party candidates might be doable. Three or more is a lot less likely. I think in particular, it’s conceivable that we could see a bifurcated system of an inclusive three- or four- debate followed by the usual more restrictive “viable candidates only” debate, which wouldn’t be ideal but would be a huge improvement. But you’re going to have a very hard time demanding that the Republican and Democrat debate the nominee of parties down to an effective threshold of 0.09% of the vote in the last election.
Goode missed the cut narrowly in 2012. We’ll see if the CP makes it this time.
The argument they are pushing is on the ballot in enough states to constitute a potential majority in the Electoral College (270). That would have included Johnson and Stein in 2012, according to Richard Winger that absolute most who have ever met that standard in an election is seven.
one easy answer is any candidate who could theoretically win the election (without resorting to write-in votes). There has never been a presidential election in U.S. history with more than 7 candidates who could theoretically have won. In 2012 there were only four such candidates.
What defines a “qualified” candidate?