US Green Party nominee Jill Stein says she is planning to appear at the first presidential debate despite being ignored by the Commission on Presidential Debates.
The commission announced on Friday that Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson and Stein will not participate in the September 26 debate because they failed to garner the 15 percent support in five polls required to qualify for the debate.
But the Green Party presidential nominee rejected the standards set by the commission and told CNN she plans to show up at the event with her supporters.
"We will be at the debate to insist that Americans not only have a right to vote, but we have a right to know who we can vote for," she said.
Meanwhile, Johnson said in a statement he wasn't surprised by the decision to "exclude" him from the first debate.
He said he plans to have the 15 percent polling threshold to make it to the second debate in early October.
"There are more polls and more debates, and we plan to be on the debate stage in October," he stated.
According to Mark Dankof, a former third-party US Senate candidate, third-party presidential candidates in the US face "insurmountable obstacles" from the two major political parties, as well as from wealthy corporations and the mainstream media.
America’s corrupt campaign finance system and the corporate-controlled media prevents third-party candidates from getting proper access to the press and winning the race for the White House, Dankof told Press TV last month.
“As a former third-party candidate in the United States Senate race, I can tell her [Stein] that the obstacles that she’s going to face as a third-party candidate are insurmountable,” said Dankof, who is also a broadcaster and pastor in San Antonio, Texas.