Scott Liles, Baxter Bulletin Published 8:44 p.m. CT Aug. 9, 2020

A decorated Chevrolet Malibu sits in a parking lot of the Arkansas State University-Mountain Home campus on Saturday before being taken out on the road as part of the Let Her Speak Convoy organized by the Baxter County Libertarian Party. Convoy participants hoped to raise awareness of Libertarian presidential nominee Jo Jorgensen and publicize the reluctance of the Commission on Presidential Debates to allow third party candidates onto the debate stage.(Photo: Submitted photo)

Baxter County residents took to their vehicles Saturday to participate in the nationwide Let Her Speak Convoy to bring awareness to the exclusion of Libertarian presidential nominee JoJorgensen from the upcoming presidential debates.

Saturday's event in Mountain Home was one of many simultaneous Let Her Speak Convoys held in a nationwide "rolling protest" of theCommission on Presidential Debates' continued decision to silence all third party candidateslisted on the presidential ballot.

Jo Jorgensen(Photo: Submitted photo)

The local Let Her Speak Convoy was organized by the Baxter County Libertarian Party. Baxter County was one of five Arkansas counties to organize a convoy, and one of 153 convoys held across the U.S. on Saturday.

The Let Her Speak Convoy is believed to be the first nationwide rolling protest, and has been submitted to Guinness World Records for its consideration.

In Mountain Home, participants gathered on the campus of Arkansas State University-Mountain Home before driving convoy-styleon the Sheid-Hopper Bypass and through town on U.S. Highway 62/412.Participants decorated their vehicles with slogans like "#Let Her Speak," "#JoJo2020" and "Jo20.com." Some participants also shared the convoy on their social media channels.

Baxter County Libertarian Party chairman Kevin Vornheder said Saturday's event went better than expected.

"We knew the larger events would be the ones in Conway, Jonesboro, and northwest Arkansas but I was concerned we might find it a challenge to come through downtown in lunchtime traffic," he said. "We appreciate the Mountain Home Police Department for providing us with an escort, and are pleased that everything went smoothly."

Currently, the Commission on Presidential Debates invites candidates to debate if they have reached a 15 percent threshold in a series of national polls the Commission selects. Those polls typically do not include third-party candidates as an option, creating what opponents describe as "the illusion of a path to the debates."

In polls that include Jorgensen as a choice, the Libertarian nominee is polling at least 13 percent, a news release from the Libertarian Party said.

"Ideally, the Commission on Presidential Debates would include all candidates on enough state ballots to win the election," Vornheder said. "Ballot access is already a significant hurdle, so that alone would weed out mathematically non-viable candidates. But, since the Democratic and Republican parties who formed the CPD have an interest in excluding third parties, the other solution would be for the national media and professional polling organizations to include third parties in their polls."

Dr. Jo Jorgensen has aPh.D. in Organizational Psychology, a senior lecturer at Clemson University and an accomplished entrepreneur.The Libertarian Party is one of the only parties in the U.S. that has secured ballot access for presidential candidates in all 50 states.

The first televised presidential debates were held in 1960 and featured Republican nominee Richard Nixon and Democratic nominee John F. Kennedy. After their four televised debates, no additional presidential debates were held until 1976, with the League of Women Voters organizing three debates between Republican incumbent Gerald Ford and Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter.

The 1980 and 1984 presidential debates were also sponsored by the League of Women Voters, turning the televised events into a mainstay of the presidential election season.

In 1987,the Democratic and Republican parties created the Commission on Presidential Debatesto take over sponsorship of the debate and change the rules by which they were conducted.

In 2012, the minimum to participate in the presidential debates was 10 percent, but the CPD raised its threshold to 15 percent after Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson got 12 percent.

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Let Her Speak Convoy rolls through MH - The Baxter Bulletin