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Mayoral debate rules are unfair, candidates Albanese and Tolkin charge

Two long-shot mayoral candidates are trying to stall the next general election debate, scheduled for Nov. 1 by individually challenging the city’s Campaign Finance Board rules.

Sal Albanese, who is running under the Reform Party banner, and Mike Tolkin, who is on the Smart Cities ballot, are claiming that the rules of the CFB are arbitrary and unfair. The next debate, Nov. 1, will be hosted by WCBS/2.

On Thursday, Albanese will argue in Brooklyn federal court that not allowing him on the ballot was a violation of several constitutional rights, including freedom of speech. He said he is going to ask for a temporary restraining order to postpone the debate until he can get on the stage.

“It’s an issue that goes to the core of democracy,” Albanese said. “We think that the federal court should step in here and allow me to be on the debate stage. The rules … are illusory.”

Albanese first sued the CFB last month after he was told he didn’t qualify to be on the debate stage. In order to qualify, a candidate must raise and spend $500,000, or raise and spend $174,225 and receive at least 8 percent of the vote in a Quinnipiac or Marist poll, according to reports.

Albanese met the minimum spending requirement (he spent just over 190,000 as of the Oct. 6 filing deadline) and received 8 percent in the poll, but he said the board told him that the poll wasn’t valid because it didn’t include every candidate. A court hearing for that first suit is scheduled for Dec. 5.

“We’ll still go forward with it — it may not impact me, but it’s worth changing for future campaigns,” he said. “I think anyone looking at this objectively would say … he should be on stage. There has to be a modicum of public support and a modicum of money raised to get on the stage, but it has to be reasonable.”

For his part, Tolkin qualified for the debate because he’s spent more than $5.4 million. Of that, about $517,000 was from monetary contributions. 

But he doesn’t participate in the city’s matching funds program and therefore, according to the CFB’s rules, it is not mandatory for him to appear on the debate stage. Instead, it is up to the debate sponsor, NY1 for the first debate and CBS for next month’s debate, to invite him — and he said they have not.

Tolkin pointed to the fact that Bo Dietl, who has spent about $858,000, also didn’t participate in the city’s matching funds program but was invited to take the stage earlier this month.

Both Mayor Bill de Blasio and Republican candidate Nicole Malliotakis met the minimum spending requirements and accepted public funds, according to CFB records.

“It makes no sense,” Tolkin said. “You can’t keep someone out on an arbitrary and capricious basis.”

Tolkin said he filed a suit against CBS and the CFB on Wednesday, alleging he was being discriminated against for his age — he’s 32 years old — and his political beliefs.

“It’s a request to show cause that it wasn’t done on a discriminatory and partisan decision,” he said. “The level of corruption right in front of our faces is incredible to me.”

A spokesman for the CFB declined to comment, citing pending litigation, but said the board hadn’t been notified of the filing as of 5 p.m. on Wednesday.

A spokeswoman for CBS said “the debate participants will be announced on October 30.”