The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission (ACCEC) is refusing to allow Arizona Green Party (AZGP) candidate Eduardo Quintana to participate in the U.S. Senate debate scheduled for October 9 with Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Ruben Gallego, even though Libertarian Party candidate Marc Victor was allowed to participate in the 2022 U.S. Senate debate with Republican Blake Masters and Democrat Mark Kelly. Since Libertarians tend to take away more support from Republicans than Democrats, and Green Party candidates take away support mainly from Democrats, the ACCEC is coming under fire for skewing the debate to favor Gallego.
Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk pointed out the discrepancy in a thread on X. He cited a statement from Arizona Media Association, the broadcast partner for Arizona Clean Elections debates, which said that “candidates must receive at least 1% of the total ballots cast in all the primaries for their race to be included.”
However, Victor only received .02 percent, and Quintana (pictured above) also received .02 percent — not enough for the threshold. “Historically, Libertarians pull votes away from Republican candidates, and the Green Party pulls votes away from Democrat candidates…” Kirk said. “Did taxpayer-funded Arizona Clean Elections (@AZCCEC) exclude the Green Party Nominee to tip the scale to favor Democrat Ruben Gallego?”
The AZGP posted on X that the rules were changed after 2022 to require the 1 percent minimum. “These new qualification rules, which were not in place in 2022, were designed precisely to keep Greens out of the debates,” the account said. “How is a candidate from a party of < 5K registered voters supposed to get 12,400 votes in the primary? The system is rigged against us from the top down.”
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