On May 17, Americans Elect announced that it will not nominate anyone for President this year. The announcement came at 5 p.m. eastern time. Here is the text of the press release, courtesy of Talking Points Memo.
The last sentence makes it clear that Americans Elect is in no way disbanding itself. Americans Elect leaders feel their party will be active in future elections. There are about twelve states in which the party will be on the ballot automatically in 2014, even if it has no nominees for any office in 2012. Also Americans Elect, at least for now, expects to continue petitioning in Texas and Idaho, the two states where the drive is quite far along, but isn’t finished.
Do you think they will do anything with the ballot access they do have now? They could give it to other third parties. If no one is their nominee, they will lose ballot access in a lot of states because most states require that a nominee receives a certain percentage of the vote.
Wow, if they don’t continue then it means that the blew a lot of money for nothing.
Why would they continue petitioning in Texas? Without a candidate they can’t qualify for 2014, and if they know they won’t have a presidential candidate they are making a false representation to the signer.
And the only consequence of signing is that the signer is barred from voting in the primary.
“Jim Riley Says:
May 17th, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Why would they continue petitioning in Texas? Without a candidate they can’t qualify for 2014, and if they know they won’t have a presidential candidate they are making a false representation to the signer.”
Maybe they have a contract to finish the petition drive in Texas, but it does seem rather pointless if they won’t have a candidate and will lose ballot status right after the 2012 election.
#4 Couldn’t they simply pay the contractor, and let him settle with his subcontractors?
“Jim Riley Says:
May 17th, 2012 at 2:19 pm
#4 Couldn’t they simply pay the contractor, and let him settle with his subcontractors?”
Maybe they don’t want to make life easy for them.:)
The AE process was deeply flawed from the outset and there were early warning signs that this was the case. Most AE voter ‘delegates’ probably aren’t even aware of how the process was to work but AE uncleverly says ‘the rules must be followed’. Unfortunately, 90% of the voters did not understand the rules which were never described on the home page or in a personal email to the registered AE voters. Thus, AE is over before it even starts. This was a sham quest for the ‘vital center’ from the start and what they are admitting is the ‘vital center’ does not exist. What does exist is a vital reform movement to expose the electoral process with the top two getting all the media and money and noone else given a chance. This puts AE in the category of scam and sham, not a failed attempt to find a credible candidate. It was planned to fail.
The AE process was deeply flawed and their were early warning signs that this was the case. Most AE voter ‘delegates’ probably aren’t even aware of how the process was to work but AE uncleverly says ‘the rules must be followed’. Unfortunately, 90% of the voters did not understand the rules which were never described on the home page but buried deep in a buried document that most never were read. Thus, AE is over before it even starts. The search for the holy grail of AE’s modus operandi continues—if anyone finds candidates from the ‘vital center’ let us know. Right now it looks like those sought after ‘moderates’ don’t exist and couldn’t move the country foward if they did. What we need is true radical reformers like Rocky Anderson and Buddy Roehmer, the two leading ‘support’ getters on AE’s roster of ‘declared’ candidates who would have advanced to the finals if the process had been followed thru to the finish. But hidden ‘rules’ were more important to the AE misleaders than an honest (s)election. AE should now be swept into the dustbin of history and it’s misleaders never trusted again.
A total joke, and a total waste.
I said here a year ago, that the only viable candidate was Bloomberg.
After him, anyone else was unlikely to gain traction with more than 10% of the voters.
Buddy Roehmer, the most visible possibility is totally unknown to 98% of the American population outside his home state.
Wow, somebody dropped the ball.
As a interesting side note, outside my post office in the East Bay, east of San Francisco, were two Lyndon LaRouche supports with two tables, flags and posters of Obama with a Hitler mustache.
Getting a near universal poor reception from postal customers.
I talked with them, being reasonable, to see what their current theme was.
They had zero public relation skills. Turning off everyone. Said they were part of 120 teams in the world spreading the message.
Good luck guys!
I thought they weren’t real when they first began. This only confirms my believe that AE is a joke. Any creditability they have just went out the window. If you live in WV and want someone to support this election go to my website and donate to my campaign and help a third party guy get elected to WV House of Delegates on Nov. 6th. Vote http://davisforwvhouse.webs.com/
#7
Presumably you are literate and could read the detailed rules on AE’s website.
I would wager that AE’s rules were clearer than the Democrats and Republicans 50 different rules for each state with its own nomination and primary ballot eligibility process.
Well, it appears that the information that I provided to Richard Winger is correct. There’s some guy named Sipley on the original thread who said something to the affect that “it’s coming from Dondero so it has to be false.”
Mr. Siply, or whatever your name is, I’d appreciate an apology.
Eric Dondero, Publisher
LibertarianRepublican.net
ALL the time and energy and money should have been used to get P.R. and NONPARTISAN App.V. into 1 or more States.
BUT – this is the New Age of STUNT FOOLS/MORONS – who are clueless about the EVIL in the top Donkey/Elephant gangs.
Behind the Donkey/Elephant EVIL closed doors things happen — UN-declared wars, domestic oppressions, etc. etc. — i.e. business as usual in EVIL Devil City
— esp. since 7 Dec 1941 — i.e. the de facto end of the Brit Empire and its replacement by the U.S.A. gerrymander Empire of left/right statist control freaks.
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@13
I don’t apologize. Ever.
Anyone surprised by this news must be very naive and gullible.
MORONS!
Of all the reasons for them to fail, this is probably the daftest. The most sensible thing they could do is rewrite their own rules and make sure someone’s name is on the ballot, even if its just one of the guys who runs the website.
Still, shouldn’t be surprised.
Why should anyone apologize to you Dondero?
First of all your info was erroneous, Idaho was not cut off.
Second it was deceptive, as all the other states they were doing were already over anyway.
If anyone should apologize it should be Dondero.
Additionally no one has said it has to be false if it comes from you. We just said it needs more reliable sources to be trustworthy. Sometimes you do get it right, although this was not one of those times. But you get it wrong so often that believing something just because you said it is a very bad idea.
A rerun from last time. Remember “Unity 08”? I doubt Americans Elect will be around in 2016.
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@23 Unity 08 was hampered by campaign finance laws that have been changed since then (with court rulings and bureaucratic redefinitions) to allow them to do what they want to do, which they started to do this year, and got along much further than Unity O8.
AE 2012 had that problem licked, but was hampered primarily by lack of a person willing to stick their neck out and take one for the team. Many such people were qualified, agreed with AE’s goals, and considered it, and they all decided in the end that the costs to themselves and their families personally and professionally were not worth it. Some came close to making that leap but in the end none did.
It could actually still happen – if you read the press release carefully enough it is weasel worded to leave open the door for the board to appoint a candidate and their rules do allow that as well, but chances are it will not. Deadlines in too many states are drawing close and no one capable of doing what they agree needs to be done wants to take the consequences of doing it.
Look for a likely Congressional effort to probably happen in 2014.
As for 2016, it is far too early to predict to what extent world events, evolving technology, changing laws and many other things will transform the landscape and what may emerge as a result. If you want to go off on that fool’s errand, have fun.