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

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

Ms. Stein, who ran for president in 2016, said she believes voters are being deprived a right to hearing 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 Wednesday.

“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,” Ms. Stein said.

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. So far the channel said that only former President Donald Trump, a Republican, and President Joe Biden, a Democrat, are eligible to take the stage for the June 27 event.

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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 have reached 15 percent in four reliable polls by June 20.

“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, saying 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.”