But we in the Utah Libertarian Party believe the rules that you have implemented for debate participation in 2026 fall short of those required to achieve the goal you declare.

In particular, the choice to not incorporate the calculated Margin of Error when determining candidate inclusion is entirely unacceptable. What a margin of error does is to compensate for the limited size of any poll. To not include it in calculating support for any candidate is to ignore the basic mathematics of using a small sample. Ignoring it is fully recognized by observers of the debate process nationwide as a backhanded way to limit opposition candidates.

I note at this point that based on the poll results released, our candidate in Congressional District 1, Jesse West, would still not meet the 10% requirement, even if the Margin of Error is included. But there is still another problem with this year’s process that needs to be pointed out.

In prior years, the UDC has used a poll standard created by combining five different pools (from a pool of 12 to 15 possible polls). Doing this helps to compensate for the biases that may be present in polling methods, and greatly expands the total number of voters contacted in the polling process. This year, you have chosen to use only a single poll, one conducted by the Hinckley Institute for Politics – which is the host organization for the Commission.

The Commission has chosen to use only a poll which your own organization conducted. That is in no way whatsoever consistent with transparency, and in fact is a blatant violation of the statement on your own website: “The Utah Debate Commission (UDC) uses independently commissioned poll results to establish a minimum support threshold for debate participation. This process of independent research and data collection is central to UDC’s ability to produce non-partisan debates of significance to the state of Utah.”

We also note that the poll used for CD 1 – and the one we have seen for CD 4 – both have just over 500 respondents. That is a very small poll size. Margin of error is not dependent on the percentage of total voters surveyed, but polling experts assert that to have reasonably accurate results in any population over 10,000, you need a poll with no fewer than 1000 respondents, and preferably 1500. Five hundred plus respondents falls well short of meeting national standards for accuracy. And failing to create a “poll of polls” reinforces the inherent bias in any individual poll.

Let me be clear about this: it is all but impossible to not believe that the decisions that have been made were made specifically to keep Libertarian candidates off the debate stage. In 2024, every Libertarian candidate, in a race for which the Commission hosted a debate, qualified to be in that debate. In the past two election cycles, five candidates who were not members of the two old legacy parties qualified to participate in debates, and four of the five were candidates of the Libertarian Party. There is no question that we are the primary target this action.

But this is truly about more than just us. Allowing only two parties into the debate system IS partisanship. And the trend in Utah is away from the old legacy parties. Of the two million registered voters in Utah, more than one in three – 36.4 percent – are not members of the legacy parties. They are Libertarians, Constitutionalists, Independent Americans, Forwarders, Greens, and the fastest growing group, Unaffiliated. This is consistent with national polls that show from 40 to 60 percent of Americans wanting another political option than they most often see.

If your mission statement is to be taken seriously, you cannot disenfranchise more than a third of Utah voters. And, to be blunt, in 2024 we had three candidates in various UDC debates. In 2025, there was substantial dispute in the legislature over reducing the UDC budget. And now in 2026, the rules have been changed to keep us off the stage. We learned way back in first grade how to connect the dots.

There is a simple solution here. Issue a debate invitation to EVERY candidate whose name will appear on the ballot. State statute has established a system which is not negligible to achieve that, and there is no particularly good reason for the Commission to override it. If there is a proper role for a state-organized Debate Commission, it is to coordinate the logistics of debates, not to control who is allowed to participate.

I thank you for your time, and the effort you put into making sure the debates are hosted throughout the state, and made available to our voters. And I ask that you read over your mission statement and do what is necessary to properly serve the interests of the people of Utah.

Barry Short is the Chair of the Utah Libertarian Party.