Long-shot third party presidential candidate Jill Stein and her Green Party ticket-mate Cheri Honkala were arrested a short while ago outside Hofstra University while attempting to enter the presidential debate hall without the proper credentials.

Stein and Honkala assert that, since the Green Party managed to secure a spot on a whopping 83.1% of all ballots across the country, it is mathematically possible for them to win the election, and therefore they deserve a chance to debate the other candidates.

They further denounce the Commission on Presidential Debates as an "unfair entity" set up by Democratic and Republican leaders to lock third party candidates out of the democratic process.

"Cheri and I agreed that this mockery of democracy, this violation of our basic right as citizens, of a so-called democratic country- we are here to challenge the violation of our democratic rights," Stein told the Philadelphia Weekly. "We are prepared to be arrested in the service of democracy and a future that serves us all."

Stein, incidentally, has experience debating at least one of this year's presidential candidates: Mitt Romney. The two shared a stage during the Massachusetts gubernatorial election of 2002, when Stein was a candidate for the local Green-Rainbow Party.

[video via Long Island Report]