The Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate is not eligible to participate in the coming Clean Elections Commission debate, per new rules from its broadcasting partner.
The candidate is now saying his party did not have enough information to meet the threshold.
The party only has 3,400 registered voters in Arizona. The debate-qualifying threshold is about12,400 votes, or 1% of all ballots cast.
Green Party candidate Eduardo Quintana says those rules were not published when the party decided to hold a closed primary. He said the party could have made different decisions had they known.
Chris Kline is CEO of the Arizona Media Association, which broadcasts the debates.
“We can't have a reasonable general election debate if we're trying to give equal time to candidates that receive 200 votes out of over a million cast," Kline said.
State Sen. Jake Hoffman wrote a letter to the commission last week demanding answers on how the rules were implemented.
