In the coming weeks news reports will be filled with coverage about the performance of the Republican and Democratic Party candidates in the televised Presidential and Vice Presidential debates. Wyoming voters deserve to receive equal coverage about the ideas of the Green and Libertarian Party candidates.

The private company that controls the debates has set an arbitrary bar to participation. The only candidate outside the two ruling parties to qualify was a billionaire financing his own campaign a quarter century ago. The debates themselves are actually scripted press conferences disguised as journalism.

Both the Green and Libertarian Party candidates are qualified to appear on the ballot in all or nearly all of the states—the Libertarians in 50 and the Greens in 45. Under the nation’s election laws, either the Greens or the Libertarians could win the Presidential election—especially in a four-way contest.

Wyoming voters in particular deserve to see the Greens and Libertarians in the debates. Neither the Republican nor the Democratic nominee received a majority of support from their party membership in Wyoming.

If the Green and Libertarian Party candidates are going to be excluded from the nationally televised debates, as seems likely, then local Wyoming media outlets owe the voters equal coverage for Jill Stein, Ajamu Baraka, Gary Johnson, and Bill Weld.

Hailey Redden, Green River
Bern Haggerty, Laramie
Co-Chairs, Wyoming Green Party