Ballot Access News reports on Americans Elect petition drives going on in Wyoming, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Montana, South Carolina, and as we previously noted, Rhode Island, Maine, Tennessee, Georgia, Oregon, Colorado, Alabama, and Arkansas (the last one may already be finished; I don’t know whether any of the others are yet).
The Ohio Secretary of State is pondering whether to put Americans Elect on the ballot.
The September 2011 Ballot Access News lists Americans Elect as having already qualified in Alaska and Arizona, finished petitioning in California, Unsettled in Florida (since then settled in favor of Americans Elect), finished petitioning in Hawaii, already on in Kansas and Michigan, finished petitioning in Missouri, already on in Nevada, and above the legal requirement and working on padding in Utah (in a telephone conversation, Richard Winger says he believes they have since then finished Utah). Idaho is shown with an asterisk, which usually means either that petitioning has started but no signatures have been reported yet, or that the legal period for collecting signatures has started but the drive itself hasn’t.
It is possible that Americans Elect could pass the Green and Constitution parties in number of states with ballot access for 2012 by the end of 2011.
Voters can now register to vote as Americans Elect in Kansas and will soon have that option in California and Nevada.
Ballot Access News also reports that
Americans Elect does not wish to participate in any government-sponsored presidential primaries, because it has its own national on-line presidential primary. However, chances are it would be eligible for government presidential primaries in Arizona, California, Delaware, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Utah, and possibly a few other states, if it wished.
Americans Elect’s webpage regularly updates the number of signatures that have been collected on ballot access petitions. The current total, posted early this week, is 1,844,938, which is higher by 15,674 signatures than the total posted two weeks ago.
By mid-October of 1995, the Reform Party had only begun ballot access petitioning or registration activity in California, so Americans Elect is ahead of the Reform Party, for this point in the cycle. However, the Reform Party had the advantage that it would soon be recognized in Minnesota, New York, Oregon, and Virginia, without having to petition, based on already-qualified state parties in those four states that were about to affiliate with the national Reform Party.
The same article notes that Americans Elect submitted 1,621,627 signatures in California.
Meanwhile, at Irregular Times:
Americans Elect Drops November 6 Activation Date from its Briefing Book
It’s unclear whether this change reflects a delay in Americans Elect’s schedule to roll out its candidate and draft campaign capabilities, or an intention by Americans Elect to introduce such capabilities earlier than previously scheduled.
Americans Elect’s “leaders” include:
Chairman Peter Ackerman, Founder and Managing Partner, Rockport Capital
Jacqueline Adams, Senior Counselor, Burson-Marteller corporate public relations
David Albertson, agribusiness, venture capital and real estate investment
Gerald W. Blakeley Jr., President, Blakeley Investment Company
Arturo Brillembourg, President, Farmington Asset Management hedge fund
Hilda Ochoa Brillembourg, President and CEO, Strategic Investment Group hedge fund and private equity group
John H. Burbank III, Founder, Managing Member and Chief Investment Officer of Passport Capital hedge fund
W. Bowman Cutter, Senior Fellow and Director of Economic Policy Initiative, Roosevelt Institute and Managing Director, The Cedars Capital Partners
Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, CEO, E.L. Rothschild private investment firm
Les Francis, Principal/Senior Advisor, Washington Media Group corporate public relations firm
Carla Hills, Chairman & CEO, Hills & Company corporate advocacy firm on international trade
Roderick M. Hills, Principal, Hills & Company corporate advocacy firm on international trade and Partner, Hills, Stern & Morley, LLP private equity and investment law firm
Philip K. Howard, Partner, Covington & Burling corporate law firm, specializing in mergers and acquisitions
Dale E. Jones, Vice Chairman, Heidrick & Struggles executive search and corporate consulting firm
W. David Lawson IV, Managing Director, JP Morgan Chase & Co. Investment Bank
Lee Lowenstein, Managing Director, Lionstone Capital Management firm for private wealth investment
Rafael Mayer, Managing Partner, Khronos LLC hedge fund management firm
Mark McKinnon, Global Vice Chair, Hill and Knowlton Public Relations corporation
Morton H. Meyerson, Chairman, Alsbridge outsourcing corporation
Nancy E. Roman, President, G7 Group corporate political analysis firm
Kirk T. Rostron, Managing Partner, The Mount Vernon Group private investment firm
How to use the Americans Elect Rules to Eject the Americans Elect Corporate Board (?)
Grassroots vs. “Grassroots”: Americans Elect Orlando and Occupy Orlando
Confirmed: While Douglas Schoen Adopted Pose of Discovering Americans Elect, he was Working for It
Americans Elect posts Draft Rules and Candidate Handbook
“Getting Involved”: Americans Elect vs. the October 2011 DC Occupation
2nd Mystery Reference to Rules Americans Elect has not Publicly Released
Americans Elect Field Director Fibs about Candidate Censoring Committee on Public Radio
It’s not as many signatures as initiatives, so it;s not surprising you haven;t seen them.
I know people that worked on it in Colorado though.
I have, yet, to see ANY Activity of:
Ballot Access News reports on Americans Elect petition drives going on in Wyoming, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Montana, South Carolina, and as we previously noted, Rhode Island, Maine, Tennessee, Georgia, Oregon, Colorado, Alabama, and Arkansas (the last one may already be finished; I don’t know whether any of the others are yet). – here in Colorado!
HILLARY 2012! The most extraordinary woman of all times! Smartest woman in the world
One interesting theory in that article @18 I have not thought of before, they might run Hillary Clinton.
Anyone have thoughts on this?
Interesting article at http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-mcmanus-column-third-party-americans-elect-20111027,0,7807734.column?track=rss
ACP
Keep in mind that Our Oregon is a biased progressive Democrat site that is very hostile to third parties and independents as well as economically pro-liberty ballot initiatives. They are part of a union-led effort to keep opposition to union policies off the ballot and elect Democrats by keeping anyone who might “take votes” from them off the ballot as well.
More on AE Field Director Kellen Arno:
http://ouroregon.org/sockeye/blog/americans-elect-part-iv-paying-big-money-signatures
Sounds good in theory but I don’t believe they will allow it. Some people are spending some serious money here, I don’t believe they would do that unless they had an outcome in mind (person and/or policy) and some how I don’t think all these CFR, CIA and banksters have Ron Paul or anyone like him in mind.
AE leader Peter Ackerman writes books about revolutions carefully orchestrated by tiny elites and made to look like popular uprisings, such as the “color revolutions” in other countries that the CIA has been heavily involved with. This is a model he advocates and apparently is putting in place with AE.
Revolutionary change is in the air in the USA with Tea Parties and Occupy Everywhere, and these elitists want to make sure the energy is channeled in a direction they like rather than one that could severely hurt their financial interests.
An interesting proposition…
Americans Elect Ron Paul!
I wonder…
As far as I can tell, the Americans Elect nomination process is fair and open to someone that the Americans Elect leaders might not like. Americans Elect will have a completely independent auditing firm supervising the on-line nomination votes. Someone like Ron Paul, if he wanted to be the Americans Elect nominee, could probably swing it. To be nominated for the AE primary, 10,000 members of AE would need to click on Ron Paul’s name. Ron Paul could easily ask his supporters to sign up to be AE voters. It’s very easy to do. And an AE voter is free to click on multiple presidential candidates’s names to get them into the AE primary.
Americans Elect sounds like a nice concept on paper, but it is probably not going to produce a good result in practice, at least not from a pro-liberty stand point.
Americans Elect probably won’t be any worse than the average Democrat or Republican.
Wolfefan – in some ways you are correct, they were elites, but they sacrificed everything in the belief that a nation could be created which would give the average citizen a voice and a chance of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This led to the rise of a midde class and an unparallelled explosion of knowledge and wealth which raised the standard of living beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, eventually having a global impact.
Likely possibilities:
1. They want to actually elect one of their own, I believe is most likely.
2. It seems that many of their leaders like Republican candidates, but articles at Irregular Times and Our Oregon show that most of the delegates they have signed up so far are liberals, so they are speculating that they are trying to get the Republicans elected by splitting the liberal vote.
However I am not convinced of this. I believe they intend to actually win. Bloomberg is richer than Perot, and Perot had 40% support (ahead of Clinton and Bush) prior to dropping out and then back in. Bloomberg has said he won’t run, but he could be lying though. Or, he may run for VP a la Dick Cheney and find a frontman such as CIA chief David Patraeus or Jon Huntsman to run for president.
3. The point may have nothing to do with electing themselves or whether the Republican or Democrat wins. It may simply be to absorb all or most of the rebellious energy that is likely to channel itself into protest movements or third parties in the next year and give it a fake populist outlet that is controlled by the elitists.
This is a distinct possibility, but I think they don’t want to just stop there – they want to actually win the presidency and have the means to do it.
Correction – I should have said “who where themselves the elite” or something like that. The framers weren’t just part of the elite – they were pretty much it in toto.
Wasn’t “rule by elites” one of the goals of the framers of the Constitution, themselves a part of the elite?
They want to co-opt the Tea Party & Occupy Movements…prevent those that love the constitution and despise either big government or big business or both from uniting in an electoral tidal wave…this is the face of the so-called counter-revolution, so to speak. Ron Paul obviously causes them indigestion.
They fear a popular/populist/constitutionalist candidate like Ron Paul arising and seek to split the vote with a phony alternative in order to keep Obama in office. Just a thought…
Whew. I just did a quick scan of the full article at the Irregular Times with regard to the list of “leaders” noted above.
15 PEOPLE ON THAT LIST ARE MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, INCLUDING THE HEAD DUDE ACKERMAN WHO IS ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS.
I guess at first I thought it was just Bloomberg’s money, but now I’m convinced –
IT’S WALLSTREET BANKSTER MONEY!!
Don’t fall for this ruse folks. Americans Elect is a shill for the power elite bankers who control our country.
The only question is what are they trying to accomplish. Actually elect one of their own like Colin Powell, or just throw the election back to Obama by splitting the anti-Obama vote? What do you think?
On the other hand, that’s a list of moneyed interests that can massively outspend the lootocrats now bleeding Uncle Sam dry.
At a guess, that’s a list of friends of Michael Bloomberg, tired of having their country run by overpromoted Chicago Aldermen and back-country ignoramuses.
So ACP and all readers here –
What do you believe is the real objective of the big money behind Americans Elect?
Who is providing the big money?
And who will AE nominate for President?
Inquiring minds want to know!
A blatant attempt to co-opt real grassroots movements. Truly a paper campaign. The paper, of course, being dollars…Wake up America this is just a brilliant scheme of the ruling 1% to derail any meaningful change, once again subverting the hopes and dreams and wishes of the people.