Only eleven candidates seeking the presidential nomination of Americans Elect have as many as forty supporters within the Americans Elect process. They are:
1. Buddy Roemer, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has 2,221 votes. Here is his web page.
2. Rocky Anderson, Salt Lake City, Utah, has 954. Here is his web page.
3. Laurence Kotlikoff, Brookline, Massachusetts, has 638. Here is his web page. He is a professor of economics and was an economic advisor to President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors.
4. Michealene Risley, Woodside, California, has 588. She makes documentary films and is a published author. One of her films, “Flashcards” was nominated for an Oscar and concerns child abuse. Her other film is “Tapestries of Hope” about Zimbabwe. She doesn’t seem to have a campaign web page.
5. T. J. O’Hara, Rancho Santa Fe, California, has 189. Here is his web page. He is a businessman.
6. Mike Ballantine, registered to vote as a Green Party member in Pennsylvania, but has lived in Vietnam for the last six years. He has 117 votes. Here is his web page.
7. R. J. Harris, Norman, Oklahoma, has 80. Here is his web page. He is also seeking the Libertarian Party nomination.
8. Marlin Miller, Tennessee, has 70. Here is his web page. He is also the presidential nominee of American Third Position Party.
9. Dwight Smith, Detroit area, Michigan, has 58. He doesn’t seem to have a campaign web page.
10. David Jon Sponheim, Oak Harbor, Washington, has 47. Here is his web page. He is also the presidential nominee of America’s Third Party.
11. Verl Farnsworth, Mesa, Arizona, has 46. Here is his web page.
Americans Elect is such an incredible idea.
Unfortunately for a Democrat or Republican who cares more about America than party affiliation and who is pragmatic, solution minded and willing to compromise it appears it is an incredibly tough decision to run under the AE banner and then experience the wrath of their party.
Americans Elect is in Trouble
AE has great potential as a model for the reform of US politics. Not only by it online voting, but its candidates appear before the primary voters FOR FREE. Imagine – candidates winning a primary with no political debts, except to the AE voters.
Unfortunately, right now, only a tiny fraction of the delegates are participating in the candidate selection process. Qualified self-selected candidates need 10,000 support votes (1000 from each of 10 states) on the AE website to be considered in the May/June final vote. As Richard’s post shows, no one has done this – not even close!
AE has a sterling legal team working on ballot access. But there is a real risk that it will be on the ballot WITH NO CANDIDATES!
Some of us, who are active AE supporters, are planning a Twitter campaign, which might happen this week. We hope to drum up participation, and fast. Anyone on Twitter can help by re-tweeting our tweets. But the AE rule requiring 10,000 support clicks, to make a candidate eligible for the May caucus vote, will probably have to be changed. I suggest that it be changed to require just 500 supporting votes from the US generally. Having an alternative candidate selection process is a great way to eventually end partisan bickering and policy gridlock, but somehow we have got to get people off the couch, or all will be for naught.
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Blog: http://tinyurl.com/IV4All
Twitter: wjkno1
William —
It is a virtual certainty, it seems to me, that the corporate Board of Americans Elect will seek to change the 10,000-click rule — 50,000 for candidates who, under the corporate Rules, are not deemed “automatically qualified.”
Absent the late entry of a political celebrity like Michael Bloomberg, there simply isn’t going to be 10,000/50,000 clicks’ worth of enthusiasm for any one candidate, based on current trends.
What also is worth bearing in mind is that — since Americans Elect allows (indeed, encourages) delegates to click support for multiple candidates — the numbers Richard cites here represent the most optimistic scenarios for given candidates.
You write that, “right now, only a tiny fraction of the delegates are participating in the candidate selection process.”
I wonder. There is no reason to doubt that — to use the number that has been ubiquitous in recent Americans Elect press releases and news items — Americans Elect has 400,000 “members”, i.e., people who have registered at Web site with a good email address and PIN number (see Section 2.2 of the Americans Elect By-Laws).
But my guess is that only a small fraction of that number have completed the verification process to become actual “delegates” of Americans Elect, with all the attendant exclusive rights to support, draft, and vote for candidates (see Section 2.3 of the By-Laws, further clarified by Sections 1.0 and 1.1 of the Rules), as well as to challenge the decisions of the Board and its committees.
In other words, the low candidate support numbers may reflect low delegate numbers.
Let’s get a REAL candidate into this:
http://www.verminsupreme.com/
A mere perhaps 140 MILLION voters for Prez in Nov. 2012 ???
When did Prez nomination/election stuff become EVIL INSANE in the U.S.A. ??? — 1860 ???
That AE has so many many MORE signees than delegate-qualified indicates to me THAT’S a problem of the process they’ve created.
I’ll have to think about what they could do to turn ME from early early signee into an active delegate.
As a super political junkie, former Perotian, ardent supporter of Buddy Roemer, I’m embarrassed to admit that much as I want AmericansElect and Buddy Roemer to succeed I have NOT participated.
I think it’s a generational thing. The whole Facebook/Tweet stuff defeats me. Repels me almost. And I’m one who not only is heavily involved in the internet, but has a website and a blog. I do that because I MUST having published a book–and I haven’t done a good job with that either in terms of promotion. I RESENT Facebook — if you want me to be your friend, tell me who you are! Why should I have to find out?
Add to that is I got off on wrong foot with AE (and I’ll bet many others did too and gave up!!) by signing in with my pen name (nick name) only to find out LATER that wouldn’t work since AE actually checks against voter lists. Tried to change and I’ve been in a mess ever since. I DREAD trying to sign in.
Meanwhile I have blogged a lot in support of Buddy Roemer on various political websites, but otherwise a non-functional supporter.
As to requests from Roemer that I urge friends to support a place on the ballot for him? I’m finding that those political enough to do something like that are either for Romney or Obama and they DON’ WANT a 3d candidate in their to skew the result! The rest are simply not political enough to even GET an esoteric thing like a ballot access project.
#3 It would take around 33,000 total clicks for Ron Paul to get 1000 clicks in 10 states (based on his 10 largest states and assuming that the geographic distribution will stay the same).
So it would take 165,000 clicks to advance a non-autoqualified candidate.
There around 28,000 total clicks for all candidates. There must be at least 6650 clickers, based on Paul’s total. But I’d be surprised if there were 15,000. A 1000 clickers making 10 clicks each would generate 10,000 clicks. And there are bunches of candidates who are unlikely to be an exclusive clickee.
#6 Maggy, I get the sense that you know it is worth it to re-visit getting properly registered with Americans Elect to provide an opportunity for a reformist ticket with AE and possible with Roemer as its nominee.
I will tell you that it is definitely worth the effort.
Thanks.
I mean in addition to ironic. But Irony is good for starters. Then I would move on to moronic.
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