Open the Debates

To whom it may concern,

As I’m sure you are well aware, the 1st presidential debate is rapidly approaching. This debate looks as though it will only be between 2 candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. I do not understand the reason behind this. We have 4 people running and many Americans have not heard of 2 of the candidates, Jill Stein and Gary Johnson. I for one believe in the democracy that this country was founded on. I also believe in giving the public the proper knowledge to make an informed decision. How is that possible when the American people are literally only receiving 50% of the information in the debates. These debates need to be opened up to all parties who are on enough ballots to win the Presidency.

Seeing as both our current and past Republican and Democratic candidates have said how they cherish the value that diversity brings to America. How one of America’s greatest strengths is our ability to vote for our leaders. I don't see how we can only limit ourselves to two parties. The GOP primaries made history this year with the election of Donald Trump from a staggering 16 people. All of them representing different views on what they would do for America. That is a true representation of America, let the people hear different arguments and vote on the person that best represents them. In so many polls it has been shown that the majority of Americans neither like Hillary or Trump. Many Americans, including myself feel as if we are forced to choose between the lesser of 2 evils but yet we are being denied the right to hear from another choice in the form of Jill Stein or Gary Johnson. People need to see that these two are viable options.

Currently both the Green party and Libertarian party are being locked out by the Commission on Presidential Debates. This Commission is stifling our democratic process by setting arbitrary polling requirements where you can only use some polls but not others to meet those arbitrary requirements. Then to make matters worse some of the polls they must use don’t even put the Green or Libertarian parties into their polls. You can see how this is not fair. Even President Reagan saw that this was not fair in 1980, and insisted that independent John Anderson be included in the debate. When Cater refused, Reagan debated Anderson without Carter. I’ll leave you with this last thought. The right to vote means very little unless we have the right to know who we can vote for.