Federal Election Commission ("FEC") regulations require a debate sponsor to make its candidate selection decisions on the basis of "pre-established, objective" criteria. After a thorough and wide-ranging review of alternative approaches to determining who is invited to participate in the general election debates it will sponsor, the CPD adopted on October 28, 2015 its 2016 Non-Partisan Candidate Selection Criteria. Under the 2016 Criteria, in addition to being Constitutionally eligible, candidates must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to have a mathematical chance of winning a majority vote in the Electoral College, and have a level of support of at least 15 percent of the national electorate as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations, using the average of those organizations’ most recently publicly-reported results at the time of the determination. The polls to be relied upon will be selected based on the quality of the methodology employed, the reputation of the polling organizations and the frequency of the polling conducted. CPD will identify the selected polling organizations well in advance of the time the criteria are applied.