Green Party candidate Jill Stein was arrested outside of the second presidential debate at Hofstra University on Tuesday evening.
She was arrested for attempting to enter the facility of the debate along with her running mate Cheri Honkala.
"We are here to stand our ground, stand ground for the America people who have been systematically locked out of these debates for decades by the Commission on Presidential Debates," said Stein as she was being escorted by police.
The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) are the organizers of the presidential and vice presidential debates.
She added, "We think that his Commission is entirely illegitimate, and that if democracy truly prevailed, there will be no such commission, that the debates will still be run by the League of Women Voters, that the debates will be open with the criteria that the League of Women Voters had always used which was that if you have done the work to get on the ballot, if you are on the ballot and could actually win the electoral college by being on the ballot in enough states that you deserve to be in the election and you deserve to be heard, and that the American people actually deserve to hear choices which are not bought and paid for by multi-national corporations and Wall Street."
According to Stein's campaign site, the candidates have been freed from custody after eight hours.
The site noted Stein and Honkala were handcuffed "to a metal chair in a remote police warehouse on Long Island."
"It was painful but symbolic to be handcuffed for all those hours, because that what the Commission on Presidential Debates has essentially done to American democracy," said Stein following her release.
For running mate Honkala, she said the incarceration was "extremely uncomfortable, but standard for what so many Americans face on a daily basis in our corrections system."
Stein is on 85 percent of the ballots come Election Day and have polled between two and three percent in a few national polls.
Stein will be featured on an upcoming debate with Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson on Oct. 18 starting at 7 p.m. EDT on IVN.
The arrest did not interfere will the second presidential debate between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.
For more information on Stein and Honkala's stance on several issues, click here.