Rigged Debate: How Third Parties are Kept Out of America’s Presidential Debates [Video]

On Monday, Sept. 26, 2016, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton appeared on one platform at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, telling the American public how they will manage the country, if elected as president of the United States.

The debate, which is the first debate between the two competing candidates for the November 8 presidential elections, was initially scheduled to take place at Wright State University in Ohio, but it was later moved to Hofstra due to budget issues, according to the so-called Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD).

In fact, it is public knowledge that Trump and Clinton are the most unpopular presidential nominees in modern American political history.  The majority of the American voters do not like the candidates, with some voters saying they will vote for the lesser of two evils, meaning neither of the two candidates is in good standing.

However, some political commentators in the United States also believe that nearly half of the country’s voters are open to voting for a third party. With this overwhelming support for a third party candidate, the American public would have expected that the CPD will include a third party candidate in the debate.

It is said more than 100 million Americans switched their television channel to watch the presidential debate. This makes the debate very popular, as well as a platform that many voters use to decide on which candidate to settle on.

However, the story behind the creation and the motives of the CPD is damning. The CPD is controlled by the Democratic and Republican parties. It has run each of the presidential debates held since 1988. The CDP is being funded by private contributions from foundations and corporations, with the money then used to organize the debates.

Prior to 1988, the League of Women Voters (LWV) had been very instrumental in organizing debates for candidates. When the LWV was in charge of the debates, the process was open and very transparent to the American public.

However, in 1988, LWV withdrew from the presidential debates after George H.W. Bush (then nominee of Republican Party) and Michael Dukakis (then nominee of Democratic Party) secretly agreed to a memorandum of understanding that decided which candidates could participate in the debates.

The secret agreement by these two candidates also included which individuals would be panelists (and therefore able to ask questions), among others. To show its displeasure against this agreement made by the Republican and the Democratic Parties, the LWV issued a statement saying it has withdrawn its support for the debates, noting the demands of the two parties would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. That was exactly what the two parties wanted – to kick the LWV out of the debates.

Let’s state again, that when the LWV was controlling the debates, it created a fair and balanced playing field by giving serious consideration to third party candidates. This act by the LWC angered Democrats and Republicans, who then teamed, and finally took control of the debates, thus, advancing their fraudulent activities on the American public voters.

Since the CPD took over, Texas billionaire Ross Perot is the only third party candidate who has been allowed in the debates. This happened in 1992.

The CPD actually fought Perot’s inclusion, but was overruled by the major party candidates, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Bush (mistakenly) and Clinton (correctly) felt Perot would hurt the other, and so they told the CPD to include him (at the time Perot was polling around seven percent in the polls).

The 1992 debates turned out to be some of the most-watched ever, and Perot ended up finishing with 19 percent, the strongest third-party finish since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. Four years later, Perot, once again stood at seven percent and wanted in on the debates. But by this time, the major party candidates — now Clinton and Bob Dole — wanted Perot out, and the CPD excluded him.

After the 1996 election, Clinton’s advisor (now ABC news anchor) George Stephanopoulos discussed the backroom wheeling and dealing. The Dole campaign didn’t have leverage going into negotiations; they were behind. They needed to make sure Perot wasn’t in, and as long as we would agree to Perot not being in it, we could get everything else we wanted.

With a big lead on Dole, Clinton wanted fewer debates with fewer viewers. And that’s what he got. Instead of three presidential debates, there were two, which were scheduled opposite playoff baseball games. Stephanopoulos revealed: “We wanted the debates to be a non-event.”

Today, the debates face multiple lawsuits from third-party candidates challenging the CPD’s policy of requiring a candidate to have 15% support in national polls before they can be included. Although many Americans may be watching the debates, it is indeed an event with no credibility, but rather, riddled with fraud. Share this article to spread the message.

We admit we sourced part of the article from the Huffington Post.

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