On December 31, 2014, a new on-line petition directed toward the Commission on Presidential Debates was launched. The petition asks the Commission to invite all presidential candidates who are theoretically capable of winning the election. In all U.S. history, no presidential election has ever had more than seven such candidates. The 2012 election only had four such candidates. Here is the link to the group. Thanks to June Genis for the link.
From that link at Change.Org:
Open The Debates!
Dec 31, 2014 — We are happy to say that the people who brought you the most visible petitions to open up the 2012 presidential elections to all ballot-qualified candidates have teamed up again to bring you this unified, non-partisan/trans-partisan petition.
Stephen Carter, Adam Gibson, Marnie Glickman, Cornelius Brantley Jr., and Eli Beckerman are at it again, this time with a serious head start. We invite you to join your voices with ours and stand up for what is plainly our right as voters and citizens.
Sign your name, share this petition broadly, and join the fun on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/OpenTheDebates
https://www.facebook.com/groups/openthedebatesLet’s show the Commission on Presidential Debates whose elections these are!
A different effort to make the debates a bit more inclusive, by including just one additional candidate, Level the Playing Field, has been revealed to be the successor of Americans Elect.
There’s also http://opendebates2016.com/, which as far as I can tell is separate from both of the groups above, Help the Commission on Presidential Debates do its job (a coalition effort through a facebook page), and http://fairdebates.com on behalf of the lawsuit by Gary Johnson and Jill Stein to open the debates all presidential candidates who are theoretically capable of winning the election through the courts.
I hope there will be good cooperation among these various groups and efforts.
Signed. 10,000,000 signatures seems to be a ridiculously lofty goal, though.