First, in reference, the question cited in the original post garnered 65,586 votes. It came in ranked at number two out of over 15,800 submitted questions. Both the top two questions were related to firearms:
Now, here is the email received today from the director of the Open Debate Coalition; it was sent to all of the millions who voted to have a question included, and the author requested it be forwarded to others:
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.
