On May 15, the Alabama Secretary of State determined that the Americans Elect petition has enough valid signatures. Americans Elect is the first statewide petition in that state (whether newly-qualifying party or statewide independent candidate) to have completed a petition successfully since the Libertarians did it in 2000. That statement does not make reference to independent candidates for president, who only need one-ninth as many signatures as the other statewide petitions.
Americans Elect’s Board will meet on Thursday morning, May 17, to decide what happens next. It is somewhat plausible that the qualifying deadlines for candidates seeking a place on the Americans Elect primary ballot will be moved to a later date. Americans Elect petition drives that are underway, including the difficult Texas petition, are continuing in the meantime.
The Go Barr/Ogle [Green/Libertarian] ticket would like to be the one.
I’ve heard that AE is throwing in the towel?
not exactly
Just moving the deadlines to a later date wouldn’t help much.
The candidates are supposed to need 1,000 support clicks from each of 10 states to qualify (or 5,000 from 10 states for outsider candidates). Yet after three and a half months, the most popular AE candidate overall, Ron Paul, has not gotten to 1,000 clicks in any one state. His best state is California with 986 clicks, and in his 10th best state he has only 317 clicks. At that pace, he wouldn’t qualify for the AE primary until after Christmas, even if he wanted the AE nomination which is doubtful at best.
Buddy Roemer, the top declared candidate, wouldn’t qualify for the 2012 AE primary ballot until June of 2013 at his current pace.
If AE wants to have a nominee this year, the current support click requirements can’t remain at their current amounts, no matter when they set the deadline for.
Amount of clicks can be reduced, etc. Think outside the box.
Also, why assume the rate remains the same ? Say a candidate decides to spend several mil$ on a campaign to get themselves clicks plus draws free media. That could increase the rate of support clicks in a hurry..
AE way, WAY overestimated the amount of support they’d get.
I heard that Americans Elect finished petitioning in Alabama months ago. I wonder why it takes them so long to turn in their petition signatures sometimes.
I signed the Americans Elect petition outside a sporting event last Saturday. They are still going forward. With the investment made in ballot access an alternate nomination solution will assuredly be found
#8, Alabama election officials get almost no petitions, so when they get a big one, they aren’t very efficient at checking the signatures. No one needs a petition to get on a primary ballot in Alabama. Alabama doesn’t have the initiative or referendum. So not many petitions circulate in Alabama. That is why the elections officials took months to check the AE petition, because doing that work isn’t what they are accustomed to doing.
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