Don’t exclude the third party candidate

Darryl Perry
Keene
To the editor,

This November voters will see three candidates on the ballot for governor: Republican Chris Sununu, Democrat Molly Kelly, and Libertarian Jilletta Jarvis. However, during the lone debate to air on WMUR, voters will see only two of these candidates, despite having been told in August that all three candidates would be invited to the debate.

Despite my efforts to get an explanation, no one from WMUR has explained what changed from August until releasing their “Criteria for the Granite State Debates” that sets a polling threshold of 12 percent.

I am unable to find any polling that has included the Libertarian candidate since April, and I have not seen any polls conducted since the primary election. Which leads me to ask: How can a candidate get 12 percent in a poll they aren’t included in?

I know that the Supreme Court has ruled that television stations can exclude candidates using a “reasonable, viewpoint-neutral exercise of journalistic discretion.” However, the debate criteria released by WMUR does not appear to me to be reasonable and viewpoint-neutral. If anything, it seems to be intentionally set at such a level as to exclude everyone who is not named Chris Sununu or Molly Kelly. I shouldn’t be surprised, as I’ve heard that both candidates have said they would not attend any debate to which Jilletta Jarvis was invited.

If this is in fact the case, then the management at WMUR should be publicly shamed for doing the bidding of the Ruling Duopoly and shunning their journalistic responsibilities!

 

Darryl Perry

Keene