Green Party’s Jill Stein Says She’s Filed FEC Complaint Over Debate Exclusion

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein speaks at a news conference on Fifth Avenue in New York City on Dec. 5, 2016. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein said she has filed a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint for being excluded from the presidential debate to be held by CNN next week.

Ms. Stein, who also ran for president in 2016, said she believes that voters are being deprived of a right to hear from all candidates.

“We know that the American people are really hungry for real debate and discussion, and I think they are owed that, and we need to have that,” she told Scripps News on June 19.

“I think candidates who are actually ballot qualified for most voters, who could potentially win the race, have very much—not that they have a right to be in the debate—but that voters have a right to hear them in a debate and to know who our choices are.”

CNN mandated that presidential candidates receive at least 15 percent of support in four major polls and be viable on a number of state ballots in order to partake in the debate. CNN said that so far, only former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden are eligible to take the stage for the June 27 event.

Ms. Stein has generated only about 1 percent support when up against President Biden, former President Trump, independent candidate Cornel West, and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to averages from RealClearPolitics.

While it’s highly unlikely that Ms. Stein will win in the 2024 election based on the poll numbers, she garnered tens of thousands of votes in several battleground states during her 2016 run. Members of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign said years ago that Ms. Stein may have cost Ms. Clinton, a former secretary of state and first lady, the election to then-candidate Trump.

CNN and Ms. Stein’s campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment by press time.

RFK Jr. Fails to Qualify

As CNN confirmed the debate’s participants on June 20, it stated that Mr. Kennedy failed to qualify. Days before, the outlet said that Mr. Kennedy has received at least 15 percent “in three qualifying polls so far and is currently on the ballot in six states, making him currently eligible for 89 Electoral College votes.”

Previously, CNN said candidates will be invited if they have secured a place on the ballot in states totaling at least 270 votes in the Electoral College, the minimum needed to win the presidency, and reached 15 percent in four reliable polls by June 20.

Last month, the Kennedy campaign filed a complaint with the FEC that alleged CNN was working with the Trump and Biden campaigns to exclude him.

“CNN is making prohibited corporate contributions to both campaigns and the Biden committee and the Trump committee have accepted these prohibited corporate contributions,” an attorney for the Kennedy campaign, Lorenzo Holloway, wrote in a letter to the FEC.

But CNN denied Mr. Kennedy’s allegations of collusion, stating in late May that his campaign doesn’t satisfy a range of requirements.

“The law in virtually every state provides that the nominee of a state-recognized political party will be allowed ballot access without petitioning,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement at the time.

“As the presumptive nominees of their parties both Biden and Trump will satisfy this requirement. As an independent candidate, under applicable laws, RFK Jr. does not. The mere application for ballot access does not guarantee that he will appear on the ballot in any state.”