"To me writing someone in is the equivalent of throwing my vote away."
Really? Wonder if Lisa Murkowski agrees with you? I think pigeon holing yourself into selecting one of two pathetic candidates is throwing away a vote. "I do like this idea, however: http://www.americanselect.org/"; I am not surprised that you like Americans Elect. Ever read anything about it. Try these if you are curious. http://markamerica.com/2011/09/29/who-is-behind-americans-elect/ excerpt: Now I dont mean to tell you anything in particular about Americans Elect, but before a single person involves themselves with this organization, I would encourage them to ask the leadership to disclose who has funded their operations to date. In short, I believe in full disclosure, particularly if an organizations stated intention is to elect the next President of the United States. http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2012/04/09/americans-elect-quietly-upgrades-candidate-status-david-walker-from-outsider-to-insider/ excerpt: Yesterday, AE Transparency broke the news that Americans Elect had quietly upgraded the candidate status of David Walker from outsider to insider. David Walker is no ordinary Americans Elect candidate, either. In a possible conflict of interest, he happens to sit on the Americans Elect Board of Advisors, and Americans Elect leaders have sung the praises ofDavid Walker over and over and over again. http://aetransparency.blogspot.com/2012/04/weakly-voting-highlights-for-americans.html Finally, in a surprising new development this week, undeclared draft candidate David Walker skyrocketed out of nowhere (OK, out of 25th place) last week to break into our Top 20 candidate list this week in 17th place, leapfrogging all but three declared candidates. This surprise move had nothing to do with actually winning voter support (Walker gained only a lamentable 8 qualifying votes this week, anemic even by Americans Elects standards) and had everything to do with back-room funny business. How can just 8 votes (out of AECorps membership of 400,000+) significantly propel a candidate toward success in the Americans Elect beauty pageant? They cant, of course. But moving the goal-posts sure can, and that is what transpired this week while you werent looking, as AECorp insiders quietly upgraded Walkers ticket to ride. The explanation involves a bit of otherwise tedious inside baseball detail, but bear with us for a moment; in the end its a fascinating story, and Kremlin-watchers among us here at AE Transparency suspect it may have just tipped Peter Ackermans hand with respect to his strategy for rescuing his Americans Elect Corporation from a humiliating failed first-round ballot. In AECorps rules there are two very different classes of candidates: · First-Class Candidates (or what AECorps rules call Automatically Qualified candidates, who it defines as a person having previously served as Vice President, Senator, Member of Congress, Cabinet Member, Head of a federal agency, Governor, Mayor, Chairman or Chief Executive Officer or President of any corporation or nonprofit corporation, President of a national labor union, military officer who has attained flag rank, Ambassador, or President of an American-based university. · Coach Candidates (what AECorp rules refer to as Contingently Qualified candidates). Any candidate who does not meet the above qualifications to be automatically qualified is presumed to be unqualified...unless the Candidate Certification Committee finds that the candidate is capable of competent service as President. In AECorps distinctly odd vision of democracy, First Class and Coach candidates must hurdle two very unequal bars. Automatically Qualified candidates must win 1,000 votes in each of 10 states (a total of 10,000 qualifying votes) to advance to the next round of balloting, whereas Contingently Qualified candidates must win 5,000 votes in each of 10 states (50,000 qualifying votes). This is why our weekly voting graph reports candidates results as Percent of required ten-state votes attained, rather than simply reporting numbers of votes. A First Class candidate with 5,000 ten-state votes and a Coach Class candidate with 25,000 are, oddly enough, tied at 50% of their required totals. Walkers major career accomplishment was to head the Government Accountability Office (GAO) as Comptroller General from 1998 to 2008. The GAO is an arm of Congress and is, by law, independent of the Executive Branch, and is thus not a Federal agency, as section 551(1) of title 5 of the U.S. Code and many court decisions have long established. Congress and the federal courts are expressly excluded from the definition of agency. Thus, Walker has never served as Head of a federal agency, any more than he has ever served as Vice President. http://ouroregon.org/sockeye/blog/americans-elect-oregon-five-alarming-things-you-should-know Excerpt: 1. Americans Elect is refusing to identify their political funders.Despite behaving exactly like a political party, Americans Elect refuses to disclose the sources of its political donations. Enough information, however, has leaked out to make it clear that the vast majority of Americans Elects funding (tens of millions of dollars worth) has come from a small handful of Wall Street millionaires. 2. All new donations are going to pay back millionaire funders. A major component of Americans Elects multi-million dollar marketing blitz has been a fund-raising pitch to new members. But on February 20, the Americans Elect Board of Directors voted unanimously to start repaying any donor who originally gave more than $10,000 to the group. That means that every dime AE raises from its supporters is now going not to advance the mission of the party, but to pay back millionaires. The very next day, Americans Elect sent out an email to its members, calling for 5,000 new donors by Super Tuesday. "Your donation will support our field team, which is currently spread out across 19 states collecting signatures to put your choice on the ballot nationwide," read the email from Elliot Ackerman, the son of AE's millionaire founder. "We're all counting on them. And they're all counting on us. So please, give what you can today." 3. Despite all the marketing, Americans Elect members have virtually zero power to choose their candidates. A powerful Candidate Certification Committee, handpicked by the Board of Directors (who can be fired at any time for any reason) makes all decisions about who is qualified to be an Americans Elect candidate. Members can vote to overturn their decisionbut they can only overturn Committee decisions that werent unanimous. Even worse, overturning such a decision requires a majority of ALL registered members to vote for it. Because most of the people who sign up for Americans Elect wont ever return to the site, getting a majority to even turnout to vote is probably impossible. Looking at the board of Americans Elect and then comparing it to other organizations that they are on the board of is very informative, especially regarding who funds those other organizations. J - Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. - Henry Kissinger Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tun ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:350058 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
