Libertarian Party Suit Could Mean A 3-Party Debate

v4mpyr writes "The lawsuit initiated by the Arizona Libertarian Party against the ASU and CPD has been successfully scheduled for a hearing. If the CPD cannot present a decent case for excluding Michael Badnarik from a private debate funded by public sources, they will have to exercise one two options: Let Michael Badnarik debate this Wednesday or reschedule and relocate the debate. Either way it will be a major win for the third parties. The official press release can be found here."

Comments

I seriously doubt the courts will allow this

[Dh2000]

They'll just put off the judegement until after the debate

Re:I seriously doubt the courts will allow this

[SandiConoverJones]

Would you really want 3rd party candidates, the candidates who clearly state their positions on the issues to mess with the Democrats and Republicans with their meaningless, but well rehearsed sound bites? What would happen, if in a a debate, a candidate took a stand? {gasp} Would our entire country fall to ruin? Or, might it force the other candidates to answer a question?

Just where in the constitution does it say that we have a 2 party system, and that those two parties should be the Democrats and Republicans?

As for the wasted vote argument, so you should choose your lesser of evils candidate, remember, if you choose the lesser of evils, you have still chosen evil. Vote your mind, and your conscience. If you always settle for a lesser of evils, how do they know that you are dissatisfied with the status-quo? Or are you happy with the lack of choice that we are suffering with if you only consider Kerry and Bush to be the only valid, viable candidates?

How many people are on the ballot in your state? http://www.politics1.com/p2004-ballots.htm this site should list who has ballot access in your state. In my state, Ohio, there were 8 names to choose from on the 2000 ballot. (If you don't believe me, I'll make it easy for you to check my facts: http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos//results/index.html ) Why should the choice only come down to 2 candidates with 8 people who went to the effort to gain ballot access?

The mainstream press actively avoids reporting on 3rd party candidates. When a presidetial candidate passes though a city 6 times during the campaign, and 2 daily newspapers, and 4 local television channels completely ignore the visits? People were there to greet the candidate, but not a press member to be found, hmm... this smacks of collusion with the press and the Democrats and Republicans.

What we need to fight for is better coverage of the other people who will appear on the ballots of our respective states. If airing the news is an FCC required service of broadcasters, how about equal time for all of the eligible candidates? Oh Horrors! What a concept! Let the people hear of the people on the ballot before they draw the curtain? This would hardly be fair to the powers that be! People might consider voting for someone other than a Democrat or Republican.

We complain about crooked elections in other countries. They can't get much more closed, and crooked than our own.

Re:I seriously doubt the courts will allow this

[psykocrime]

The Constitutions of most states clearly establish a two party system.

Interesting... I've never heard of such a thing. Would you mind posting a few snippets of the relevant sections of a few such State Constitutions, for our elucidation? And maybe a list of a handful of States that have such clauses in their Constitutions?

Not a troll, I'm seriously interested to see this info, as it's news to me.

Re:Bad Idea

[v4mpyr]

Actually, all you need to have a chance of winning is to be on enough ballots to potentially win 270 electoral votes. There are six candidates who meet that qualification this year:

# Badnarik
# Bush
# Cobb
# Kerry
# Nader
# Peroutka

IMHO they should all be allowed to debate if they can rustle up enough support to make it on the ballots. The second requirement, high polling, is irrelevant because of it does not accurately represent the will of the people. That part should be eliminated.

The third parties are being censored!

[isotope23]

I tried to submit this but /. rejected it

At least FOX is censoring its guests. They cannot mention Badnarik on the air.

I emailed one person in question directly here is his reply:

I am the Muslim Outreach Coordinator for the campaign of the Libertarian U.S. presidential candidate Michael Badnarik. On August 20, a staffer for the O'Reilly Factor television show pre-interviewed me for an appearance to give an opposing point of view to O'Reilly's guest Muhammad Ali Hasan, founder of "Muslims for Bush." On the way to the studio to tape the program on August 26, however, I received a call from O'Reilly's staffer informing me that although I would be identified as a Muslim supporter of Badnarik, I must not mention the Libertarian Party or Badnarik's name on the air. I assured the staffer that I would not turn the segment into a Badnarik campaign ad, but objected that preventing me from mentioning Badnarik's name even once would muzzle my main point that one need not support Kerry to oppose Bush. The staffer insisted that I make the point without mentioning either Badnarik's name or that of the Libertarian Party. When I declined to accept these terms, the staffer had the driver they hired take me home.

Another local Muslim with no connection to the Badnarik campaign, Khalid Turaani, was hurried to the studio to take my place. On the air, O'Reilly sought to rebut Turanni's criticism of Bush with criticism of Kerry. Turaani spontaneously replied that, as a conservative, he would never vote for Kerry and intended to vote for the Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik. Watching this turn of events at home, I was reminded of a verse in the Qur'an: "They plotted their plans and God made His plans, and God is the best of planners."

Yours truly, I. Dean Ahmad, Ph.D. Bethesda, MD

below is the link where i first found the story.

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/09/26/ed.co l.nathan.0926.html

the "debate commission"

[Moofisto]

You seem unaware that the Commission on Presidential Debates is a private concoction created in 1988 by the Republican and Democratic National Committees to bring the debates fully under control of the major party campaigns. The CPD works for them. The CPD also provides a means for corporations to give additional soft-money contributions to those two parties.

A third party is only permitted if the Democratic and Republican campaigns believe it advantageous to their interests. The CPD is not "official" or "federal" in the sense you seem to assume.

Re:Why does Slashdot...

[v4mpyr]

One of my favourite 'wasted vote' arguments is as follows:

Pretend you are in jail on death row. You find that you have a 50% chance of lethal injection, 45% chance of the electric chair, or 5% chance of escape... which would you vote for?

Statistics has nothing to do with it. People need to realize that you don't have to vote based on who is most popular or who has the highest chance of winning. The point of voting is to vote for the person you think is right for the job, regardless of what your neighbor says.

Re:What?

[GimmeFuel]

I guess we should give all 54 parties a share of the coming debate? They'd each get what - 30 seconds?

The point of the lawsuit is that the state of Arizona recognizes three parties - Democrat, Republican and Libertarian. That means when you register as a voter, you either register as a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian or Independent. When you go to the polls, you see the candidates of those three parties, plus any Independents, on your ballot.

Despite that fact, there are only candidates from two of those parties. That would be perfectly fine if this debate were privately funded, but it is in fact funded by Arizona taxpayer money and held at Arizona State University, which is a taxpayer-funded institution. That means that the debate is obligated to include candidates from all three recognized parties, or move to a privately funded location and host the debate using nothing but private funds.

If all 54 of the parties you listed were recognized by the state of Arizona, then yes, a publicly funded debate would have to include candidates from every one of them, unless those candidates declined to attend.