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Must be on the ballot in enough states to win the election.
That's going to automatically cut out 95% of them.
Must be polling at least 3% in 3 statewide or national polls.
That will leave you with:
Harris
Trump
Stein
Oliver
Debates aren't about "giving everyone a voice", if you can't become a viable candidate without a debate, the debates can't help you.
Ballot access is made very difficult by the duopoly. And, polls are basically fucked by bias.
Many of the best hypothetical solutions are based on votes. But, all of them have prerequisite of RCV.
For a more immediate solution, 5% of the GE POTUS vote puts an organization on every ballot in the next cycle. It'd be much more difficult to rationalize exclusion from debates when such a choice exists for everyone.
In democratic countries, each candidate/party has the same right to speech during election campaign. So stuff like short clip for each candidates and either multi party debates or second round (where applicable) debate
And election campaigns only last a few weeks as opposed to the seemingly constant campaign in the US.
And parties publish manifestos with their positions on everything, as opposed to what both major parties are currently doing.
Instead of news organizations holding general debates, I'd like to see non-political non-profits hold more narrowly focused debates. Can be broadcast by any channel that wants to air it.
Focus on two or three core, interconnected, issues with a few offshoots that are tangently connected.
Invite top thinkers on those specific issues along with the top presidential candidates.
Even if the other invites don't have a shot at being president, it will still force the presidential candidates to try to make valid arguments against or side with people that really know about the issues. The people really should hear these views instead of main candidates just trying to bring their opponent down. And if someone not in the top two expresses something that really resonates with the audience, maybe it gets picked up by a main candidate.
I'd set it up as a death match where they are all dropped into different parts of an island and have to survive with what they can find
That would at least solve gerontocracy.
You can divide the debate into several topics and let the candidates choose for which topics theyβd like to be included in the debate. Something like 5 candidates per topic is a bit more doable but obviously it would still not be as easy to follow as a debate between 2 candidates.