Irregular Times has made available the Americans Elect Bylaws, which can be read here. The Bylaws are interesting for several reasons. The founders of Americans Elect have made provision for the possibility that the Americans Elect presidential nominee will receive some electoral votes, and furthermore that no presidential candidate may end up with a majority of the electoral votes. The Bylaws are careful to say that the presidential electors of American Elect will be formally unpledged, leaving them free to bargain over whom to give their electoral votes to, in case there are some Americans Elect electors and in case no presidential candidate receives a majority of the electoral vote.
The Bylaws are also interesting because they seem to place the power to nominate candidates in the hands of the Candidate Certification Committee. The bylaws say, “All qualified persons, regardless of their membership in any political party, shall be eligible to seek or accept the nomination of Americans Elect.” But they also say, “The Candidate Certification Committee shall be responsible for certifying that candidates and draftees be eligible (referring to Constitutional qualifications to hold the office), as well as to develop criteria of demonstrated achievements based on qualifications of past Presidents and Vice-Presidents to ensure that only persons capable of performing the duties of President and Vice-President are eligible for voting by the registered delegates.”
This seems to suggest that no one may seek the nomination of Americans Elect for President or Vice-President unless that person has either previously won elective office to a high position, or been a cabinet member, or been a very important general. No one has ever been elected President who did not meet one of those conditions. The bylaws say the decision of the Candidate Certification Committee can be overridden with a two-thirds vote of all delegates, but it would be virtually impossible for two-thirds of all the delegates to do anything together. There will be a large number of delegates who will probably remain passive and will not participate. Anyone U.S. adult citizen may sign up to be a delegate. Access to the contact list for the delegates will, of course, be a key asset.
As Jim Cook of Irregular Times said, this is about brokerage.
I don’t believe that AE is a bad thing, but I’m really disappointed in them for this expectation of “negotiations.”
One wonders whether the mayoralty of NYC might under this scenario be a sufficiently high elective office. The standard non-national access route to the White House is, of course, a state governorship.
I have investigated this group and found that they are one block from the White House 1600 Penn Ave versus 1775 Penn Ave. Jim Jonas is the consultant who has been associated with Mike Bloomberg on various projects.
They have a lot of money but they are very discrete in their backers.
Their effort is nationwide and it smells like a dirty trick to steal the 2012 election.
Is Obama behind this effort is the BIG question????
Everybody ready for CIVIL WAR II ??? — by having a plurality Prez — See 1860.
The 1992 stuff was NOT a warning ???
The 2000 stuff was NOT a warning ???
The 2008 stuff was NOT a warning ???
Three strikes and OUT ???
See the ROT of the Roman Republic in 120 BC to 27 BC.
NO shortage of EVIL folks making their EVIL Ponzi scheme promises to braindead voters — aka demagogues.
Extremely intriguing, to say the least. AE is a shadowy group. Not necessarily bad, but yet not necessarily good. We just don’t know.
I hope they create a situation that the media will present to the public as a big mess, but which will actually be a very healthy, and long overdue, reconfiguration of national that will have influence politics for decades to come.
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I find it disturbing that that an organization supposedly created to make american government more responsive to the american people has a Board of Directors who is elected by the practice of co-option, the Board basically elects itself. I was hoping this might be remedied by bylaws amendment, but i dont see an opportunity for the ‘membership’ to amend the bylaws, only ratify proposals made by the Board.
Carl E. Pease
Professional Registered Parliamentarian
#3:
Tony, thanks for exposing this huge conspiracy by Obama to spend money on this AE effort that will undoubtedly nominate one of the bats*** crazy republicans (too mnay to list here) who doesn’t get the GOP nomination nod. Then the GOP vote in the general election is split and Obama wins.
Very crafty that Indonesian/Kenyan/Martian/Hawaiian president of ours.
I’m going to run for president.
I hereby pledge that my Electors will vote for Demo Rep.
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Seems like the By-Laws leave out the possibility or don’t fully consider the fact that in a three-way horse race that AE could be 3rd in the national vote and still be ahead, or even have a majority, in electoral votes by way of winning a plurality in a certain # of states.
So let’s say the AE candidate has the most electoral votes than the Dems and Reps, but not +270. It’ll be interesting to see how the House of Reps selects the President.
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