The Ohio News Organization sponsored candidate debates this year for the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races. Only the Democratic and Republican nominees were invited to these debates. Last month, Dan La Botz, Socialist Party nominee for U.S. Senate, complained to the Federal Election Commission that the Ohio News Organization did not list any objective criteria for its debates, and furthermore that no polls in Ohio had included everyone who is on the ballot for that office. The U.S. Senate race has five candidates on the ballot.
On October 21, the Ohio News Organization responded to the La Botz complaint. The Ohio News Organization says that its objective criteria is that it wants the two front-runners to be the only participants in its debates. That is not what is usually meant by “objective criteria.” Generally, “objective criteria” means some particular showing in the polls. Even the Commission on Presidential Debates has a 15% poll showing, to determine who gets invited. It will be interesting to see the FEC’s reaction to the Ohio News Organization’s defense.
Hmm. What if it was, say, a Democrat and two independents all running pretty even, with no Republican? I’m interested in whether this could even theoretically be an “objective criterion.”
They’d pick the candidates with a (D) and (R) in front of their names. What do polls have to do with it? Their objective definition of “front-runner” doesn’t include poll results.
That’d be my guess anyway.
So if the polls have three or more candidates all running about even, what would they do?