We have written before of Americans Elect it seems the real story gets more and more suspect, more and more dangerous. A new story/investigation in Irregular Times: Americans Elect: A Corporation and a Political Party <read>
This is seriously dangerous. If you don’t join Americans Elect, their vote could determine the President. If you do join Americans Elect, the vote could be manipulated in the backroom or by hackers. Or the self-appointed board could override the actual vote.
In July of 2011, Americans Elect Chief Operating Officer Elliot Ackerman declared, “The key delineation to make is that we’re not a party.” These unequivocal claims are contradicted by Americans Elect’s observable behavior; Americans Elect has registered as a political party in a number of states…
Why does it matter whether Americans Elect is or is not a political party? As a registered 501c4 corporation, Americans Elect can hide the sources of unlimited funding from the American people. If it declared itself to be a political party, it would have to follow the rules for political parties, which include significant limitations to how much money they may take from individuals and mandate disclosure of them. Americans Elect is simultaneously using party status to get on the ballot for 2012 and sloughing off party status to avoid contribution requirements…
There are three elections envisioned by the Americans Elect bylaws, two of them taking place online. The first election is to select an Americans Elect presidential nominee, and only registered Americans Elect Delegates (see below) will be able to participate. The second election is the presidential election on Election Day 2012, one in which the Americans Elect nominee will be on the ballot in all 50 states and in which every registered voter in America will be able to participate as usual. The third election will take place after the November presidential election if no candidate wins a majority of electoral votes. In that circumstance, Americans Elect will hold another online vote of its Delegates to decide whether the Democratic or Republican presidential candidate will be given the electoral votes won by Americans Elect’s candidate. This third election would allow Americans Elect to throw the presidency to either party, a powerful position to hold. Americans Elect needs to win just one state in order to occupy that powerful position and trigger a third election…
In the top tier of Americans Elect is the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors and only the Board of Directors appoints its own members and corporate officers. The Board of Directors and its appointed designates write the rules for the Americans Elect elections and may overrule all actions of Employees. The Board of Directors may overrule nearly all actions of Delegates and writes the rules within which Delegates “independently” make a presidential nomination, constraining Delegates’ choices. The Board of Directors is the only body in the entire Americans Elect system to make procedural decisions by democratic majority vote, making it the swiftest means for Americans Elect to take political action…
Another reason why Americans Elect needs to disclose information about its origins, funding and activities is its unfortunate history. It’s not just that Americans Elect is currently making claims that don’t match the observable facts; there’s a history of misrepresentation, misdirection and malfunction in Americans Elect’s previous effort under the name Unity08
These are just some snippets. The full details in the article demonstrate the dangers.
