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Lilia Tamm Dixon, director of the Open Debate Coalition wrote: Moderators Cite Open Debate Coalition - But Ask Wrong Questions

Hi -- this is Lilia Tamm Dixon, director of the Open Debate Coalition. Sunday night's debate included many surreal moments.

One was when debate moderators cited the "bipartisan Open Debate Coalition's online forum where Americans submitted questions that generated millions of votes" in front of 66 million Americans.

This instantly legitimized our work together for the long haul. It cemented the idea with reporters, politicians, and the public that it's honorable and acceptable when regular people across the political spectrum come together to assert the public's voice in political debates.

This recognition would not have happened without all of us submitting great questions, voting, and sharing with others -- earning our way onto the big stage together.

But then, something ironic and tragic happened. They asked a question from our voting platform about Wikileaks that received...13 votes. All of the top 30 questions that moderators promised to consider received over 20,000 votes, and the top two questions each received over 65,000 votes.

This was an unfortunate example of cherrypicking by moderators to give their own questions the veneer of representing the public. Popular questions on guns, Social Security, government reform, student debt, climate, immigration, and other issues went unasked.

The Washington Post's Chris Cilizza wrote, "Ostensibly, this was a debate for the people and by the people...But that's not really how it turned out."

The final debate is moderated by Fox's Chris Wallace on Oct. 19. Can you sign a petition urging Wallace to do right by the public and ask questions from the top of the PresidentialOpenQuestions voting site? Click here.

Signatures will be delivered to Wallace. And after signing, you can contact Fox directly on social media.

ABC and CNN asked our coalition for regular updates on the voting progress and seemed eager to embrace public participation. Notably, a question asked on taxes was almost verbatim the #12 question on our site. And questions on health care and the Supreme Court were very in line with questions #8 and #50. But a couple good questions in 90 minutes is not enough.

For debates to be useful to voters, they need to represent the will of the people -- not be gotcha, fluff, and news-of-the-week questions that media elites love but that won't be relevant a few weeks later.

We will have some exciting news to announce soon as we build toward the vision for bottom-up debate questions. But right now, Chris Wallace needs to get our message -- please sign the petition asking him to ask questions from the top of the PresidentialOpenQuestions voting site on Oct. 19.

Thank you for working to make debates represent the will of the people.

-- Lilia

P.S. Please forward this email to others.

Have you ever wanted to personally address the candidates during a presidential debate? Find yourself yelling questions at the moderators through your TV? Don’t worry--you’re not alone.

But now, you can actually do something about it. On Sunday, October 9th at 9 p.m. eastern, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will once again face off as they make their cases to the American public and the moderators have agreed to ask questions submitted and voted on by the general public.

This is where you come in. We need your help to get the Second Amendment on the debate stage and make Hillary Clinton answer for her anti-gun policies! All you have to do is click on the link below to vote for the one pro-gun question we want asked.