Don’t like how we elect a president? Americans Elect offers alternative.
“Politics is one of the few places where you still have to accept Brand A and Brand B, so at Americans Elect we want to leverage our newest technologies to get us back to our oldest values, which is letting every voter participate in a meaningful way,” Mr. Ackerman says.
If the group has its way, it will hold the first-ever nonpartisan online nominating convention, and the political ticket that emerges from it will be on the ballot in all 50 states.
But first there’s a long row to hoe. Americans Elect must collect 2.9 million signatures, representing every state, from people who want such a nonpartisan ticket to qualify for the ballot. The drive, if successful, would mark the first time a presidential candidate nominated directly by the American people achieved ballot access. So far, 1.9 million people in 24 states have signed the petitions.
The as-yet-to-be-named ticket has already qualified for the ballot in seven states, including four swing states - Florida, Michigan, Nevada, and Ohio - and volunteers are gathering signatures in 13 others, says Kahlil Byrd, AmericansElect.org’s chief executive officer. Americans Elect is waiting to hear if its signatures are sufficient to make the ballots in Arkansas, Hawaii, Utah, and California. In California, organizers submitted 1.6 million signatures in early October, more than for any single initiative in state history.
Financial backing for the endeavor is a mystery. Americans Elect is funded exclusively by some $20 million in contributions from unnamed individuals, says Mr. Byrd. The group’s website says it intends to repay the initial financiers so that no single individual will have contributed more than $10,000.