10/27/20: Independent presidential candidates call for overhaul of two-party system – JH News & Guide

The following is an excerpt:

CHEYENNE – Donald Trump and Joe Biden were no-shows, but the last presidential debate of the 2020 election cycle happened Saturday night among little-known independent candidates at the Little America Hotel and Resort in Cheyenne.

While each candidate is running on a different platform, all of them share the same belief that the country’s two-party election system is flawed and ripe for revision.

Distant from both Washington and the disruptive tone set during Biden and Trump’s face-off a few weeks ago, the candidates who debated here stuck to their time limits for answering questions and didn’t interrupt each other.

A total of 10 candidates – including Trump, Biden and music mogul Kanye West, who is running as an independent – were invited to the third open presidential debate of 2020, which the Free and Equal Elections Foundation and Independent National Union co-hosted.

However, only four of those 10 candidates participated in the debate: Independent candidate Brock Pierce; Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins; Party for Socialism and Liberation candidate Gloria LaRiva; and American Solidarity Party candidate Brian Carroll.

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Expanding the pool of viable presidential candidates is something Hawkins, the Green Party candidate, has wanted since he was a young voter in the 1960s.

“I’ve been looking for an alternative my whole life,” said Hawkins, who characterized the Commission on Presidential Debates’ requirement that candidates meet a popularity threshold to participate as a “scam.”

Hawkins, whose platform includes implementing the proposed Green New Deal, addressing systemic inequities and cutting military spending, said that even though he expects “Biden to win by a landslide,” he’s still committed to building his party and pushing harder for the policy issues he’s prioritized.

“We don’t have to win the White House to have victories for the Green Party,” Hawkins said. “There’s a historic role of third parties in this country. They put issues on the table that have been excluded.”