According to the Americans Elect Mission Report, published this year, the organization spent $1,157,723 for ballot access in 2010, and $10,158,324 in 2011. Those total $11,316,047. The report does not have the 2012 figure.
Americans Elect eventually qualified itself in 29 states. The last state in which it qualified was Oregon. It had collected signatures in some states that it never submitted.
The report also says that on June 26, 2012, Americans Elect’s Board of Directors approved a plan of dissolution. The report says the dissolution will be completed by the end of 2012. However, the organization’s ballot status will survive in 2014 in twelve states.
Wow. Imagine what the LP could have done with money like that.
How much did Americans Elect spend on ballot access in 2009? That is the year that they first started to spend money on ballot access drives.
Whoops, I may be wrong in the above post. Now that I think of it, the fall of 2010 may have been when they first started doing ballot access drives.
I recall the early states that they did were Arizona, Nevada, Alaska, Kansas, and Michigan (although they may not have started Michigan until 2011).
“The report does not have the 2012 figure.”
I’d imagine that they spent a few million on ballot access in 2012, but of course they would have spent a lot more on ballot access in 2012 if they hadn’t decided to pull the plug in May.
what a waste, someone got paid off at the end for it to be dissolved the way it did.
This organization sucked up much of the independent voter political oxygen using a cynical phantom “reform” organization. — yet another job for the felony disbarment project with regards to any oath signing officer of the court / public attorney including judges violating their oaths of office.
All that money went to wast. They should have nominated someone to run.
They should have at least allowed the state level parties to nominate whomever they wished. The people that spent their time and resources to form state level parties to get ballot access, and then were shut down by the nearly national organization suffered a massive injustice.
@1 @5 @7 you guys are absolutely right. what a colossal waste. The LP could have used that money so much better.
Seems to me that Mitt Romney is the exact type of “centrist” candidate that the obviously corporatist Americans Elect Board of Directors had in mind as someone that they would have wanted nominated for their own ticket – so when it became obvious that he was going to get the GOP nod – and not an anti-corporatist like Ron Paul or an unelectable social conservative near-fascist like Rick Santorum that they feared would get it instead – the reason for their existence disappeared – especially since they were getting no traction with their incredibly clumsily implement website or their obviously astro-turfed effort that had no principles behind it for anyone to actually rally to.
Even though I don’t really agree with a lot of his policy suggestions I still think it’s a shame they didn’t just let Buddy Roemer get their nomination based on him being front runner – as he at least would have brought some well needed dialog and focus onto the issue of campaign finance reform into this year’s election. Obviously that type of thing was absolutely completely counter to the purpose of Americans Elect – so I also think one of the reasons they pulled the plug was to also insure that Roemer was not their nominee.
I think you hit it Steven. Thanks.
Actually, Ron Paul had most of the votes cast in the Americans Elect Board – even though he was undeclared. By choosing not to nominate him, they saved him from being called a spoiler by the Republicans, and left a clear field for Gary Johnson. It’s all just as well.
#10
You are completely wrong. The simple fact is that noone met the stated criteria of online support (ie clicks) at AE’s deadline for being nominated. End of story.
BradM… do you believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and that AE had no ulterior motive and wasted all that money because no one met the required number of clicks?
Walter & Brad: Although nobody met the AE click support requirements, Ron Paul was the leader among all candidates (despite being undeclared), and Buddy Roemer was the leader among declared candidates.
AE could have reduced the click requirements sufficiently to allow a nomination vote, and they could have justified doing so from the fact that many people had reported being unable to register and be verified to vote on their site, thus making it impossible for the original click requirements to be fulfilled.
Since Paul was not interested in receiving the AE nomination, the most likely nominee if AE had eased its click requirements would have been Roemer.
This is just a tragic waste of money and time. You have to wonder if the legacy parties didn’t plan it like that to begin with.
@ #16:
“legacy parties” That’s a good one. Is that original with you? May I use it?
One more EVIL political Ponzi scheme — to LOOT the MORON suckers ??? Duh.
How much cash to do a REAL P.R. and nonpartisan App.V. petition in a smaller State — i.e. NEVADA ???
#14
Yawn.
#10 Steve; Nail on the head
Could we have a link to “the Americans Elect Mission Report”, please?
The money did get Stephen Dolgos and me on the ballot next month as the Americans Elect Party candidates for Congress in Arizona’s 4th and 8th Congressional Districts. Had others wanted to, they could have been our nominees for the other congressional seats, the U.S. Senate, two seats on the statewide Corporation Commission, and every seat in the State House and State Senate, as there were Americans Elect Party primaries for all these office. Stephen got petitions to be on the ballot, but I took the lazy and cheap but effective way of registering by mid-July with the Arizona Secretary of State’s office as a write-in candidate and then winning at least one vote in the primary. (I got eleven write-in votes.)
So all the money they spent in Arizona for ballot access was not wasted as far as I’m concerned. I’m grateful that they spent all that money on helping my campaign, and Stephen’s.
@#17 Sure you can use it. I try not to use terms like “major party”, “minor party” or “3rd party” because they are deceptive.
Are there any specifics on amounts spent in specific states?