Serious Question: What Would You Ask Americans Elect?
I was able to get through to Americans Elect, thanks to the help of the ever awesome John Avlon, and will be able to talk to someone soon, probably their Press Secretary.
I have several questions I’d like to ask, but since I know some of you have questions of your own that I may not have thought of, I thought I’d give you all the chance to give me some to add to my list.
I know some of you range from skeptical to outright “see devils lurking in the shadows between the details”, but this is NOT a venue for venting. I’m looking for serious, substantive and civil questions. If you can’t stick to that, don’t bother commenting here. There will be plenty of posts on them over time for you to vent your frustrations on.
That being said… if you had the Press Secretary of Americans Elect on the phone, what would you be asking them?
About Solomon Kleinsmith
I started this site in the summer of 2010, really just as a hobby at first. But I'm pretty ambitious, and between being able to recruit some great bloggers to join the team here, putting a ton of work into the site and attracting a lot of traffic through Twitter, we've grown very fast for a young blog with next to no budget.
- Web |
- More Posts (1401)
Thanks for doing this! I would certainly ask if they will have objective standards on how someone can seek the presidential nomination. The Reform Party in 1996, and 2000, had objective standards on who could get on the Reform Party’s presidential primary mail ballot. In 1996 the vote was between Ross Perot and Richard Lamm. In 2000 it was between Pat Buchanan and John Hagelin. Also Unity08 had objective standards on how a candidate could get on its presidential primary, although that never occurred. Some people want Ron Paul to be in the Americans Elect presidential primary; would he qualify?
I had a similar question, but your wording is better. Will certainly ask something like this.
In a three-candidate election under plurality voting, the centrist candidate can only win when over 83% of voters (five out of six) believe that at least one of the two extremist parties is too extreme.
Given that current polling suggests that, even under the current hyper-polarized environment, only about 75% of voters hold this view about either party, how does American’s Elect expect to have any effect, other than perhaps being a spoiler threat?
Follow up: Are you familiar with consensus-seeking election methods, such as approval voting and score voting?
I’m not going to ask about things that don’t pertain to their mission, but I certainly will ask for a response to those who say AE will just be a spoiler.
Dale, your logic and math seem to be off. In an election where none of the voters believes that any of the 3 options is unacceptable (or extreme), the “center” can win if just 34% of voters believe that this candidate is closer to their views than either of the flanking candidates.
Where controversial issues and high stakes competition are involved, approval voting fails to work as promoted, since strategic voting kicks in. IRV has much less potential to be “played” in such elections.
I would ask them why I should trust them, based on this article:
http://californiawatch.org/node/11790
I’m having trust issues, and need to be convinced.
Submitting comments multiple times will not make them go through the spam filter faster :)
I’m not going to ask the Press Secretary for a political organization to comment on business decisions of one of the donors (there are several founders), but I will be asking why they chose to start their organization as a 501(c)4 “Super PAC” organizations that do not have to disclose donor information, rather than a 527 – who can also raise unlimited funds, but have to disclose donor info.
Great question. I’m interested in the answer to this question too – Why a 501(c)4? I’m also wondering if they plan to create a separate arm of their organization when it comes to endorsing candidates?
Once you write the article, please post a link in our America’s Third Party Group on Facebook. Anyone reading this is welcome to join: http://www.facebook.com/groups/americasthirdparty
I have seen many general comments by AE that delegates do not have to leave their party to participate in the nominating and nominee election process for AE.
My state, Texas, does not allow any affiliation by a person between different political parties. Most people are officially affiliated with a party when they vote in that party’s primary election. Note: there is no party registration when getting a voter card in Texas. Once a person votes in a Rep/Dem primary it becomes a Class C misdemeanor to participate in a convention or primary for another party, which AE will be once they complete their petition. Also, their 2nd primary vote or convention activity is voided. Additionally, and preliminarily, anyone voting in a Rep/Dem primary cannot sign AE’s petition for party ballot access. The Sec of State (our state’s top elections official) would nullify their petition signature.
I am more knowledgable than most on the labrynthian ballot access here in Texas, but this could cause many problems for Texans who want to participate in AE’s efforts not to mention hassles for AE. How will AE educate those wishing to participate AE’s efforts without jeopardizing themselves and avoid chaos?
I believe you’re not the only state with a similar requirement that you can vote in any primary, but you have to pick one. Will certainly ask about this.
What guarantee can AE make that an organized group cannot stack the delegate box behind the scenes and then pop up suddenly when its time for a coalition type vote for electoral college votes (assuming AE wins some) to support a major party ticket according to a preset plan?
Oh, this is one of my top questions :)
Interesting question. Basically they can’t prevent it.
And, of course, the horse trading scenario pre-Decemeber Electoral College vote would be very interesting should AE win enough EC votes and their is no EC majority for any candidate.
It doesn’t really matter what AE delegates or AE say about giving electoral votes to another ticket. Nothing they say or do would be binding. With the election over, the candidates might consult with AE but then decide for themselves who they want to get their electoral votes. But ultimately, presidential electors are free to vote for whomever they want, or to vote for no one, as one Gore elector did in 2000 to protest lack of congressional representation for the District of Columbia.
How will you be attracting candidates to fill the Americans Elect ticket?
Their intent to broker their electoral college votes to one major party via an online vote has never made it into any MSM article on them, and is absent from their own site.
I would ask: Why is is that plan so on the down low?
And, congrats on scoring an interview!
Congratulations, Solomon on scoring the interview! Thanks for giving us the opportunity to submit questions! Here are the questions I’d like to ask:
Has America’s Elect considered joining forces (or at least starting discussions)with groups like ruck.us and votocracy? I can really see this being beneficial since all of these groups tend to want to create software that uses matchmaking technology. I’d love to be part of this conversation.
What specifically will the prodecure be for their candidate process, or has that yet to be determined?
I may try to get into the weeds with stuff like working with Ruck.us (I’ve had the pleasure of talking with Nathan Daschle, who runs that site… I dig their idea) in some later interview, but for now I’m focusing on the core of what they are and what they are doing.
I had a question that vaguely asked this question about candidate selection, but I think you’re right that it should be it’s own question.
Congratulations on getting an interview. By many different means across a number of months, I’ve asked Americans a list of questions and they’ve never answered them or even responded with a single word. I have a list of them right here on the Americans Elect Q&A site:
http://getsatisfaction.com/people/jamesmcookusa
And here’s another one. I see you’ve been leaving comments around the internet declaring in all caps that Americans Elect is NOT a political party (!!!), and that is what Americans Elect has said more than once. But Americans Elect actually is registered as an official political party or as trying to qualify as one in multiple states. Documentation of this is at:
http://irregulartimes.com/americanselectwatch.html
And in a recent letter to the state of Florida, Americans Elect lawyer Dan Winslow repeatedly insists that AE be granted the status of not only a minor political party but a “national party.” Read the letter here:
http://irregulartimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/WinslowtoBronsonJuly192011.pdf
You could ask Americans Elect to explain the apparent contradiction. If/when they give you a vague, woolly answer, you could ask them what contribution and reporting requirements would be triggered if they publicly declared themselves to be a political party.
Don’t take offense to not being answered. They have a small team, have not been doing media outreach and have thousands of people asking questions. You haven’t gotten a response, much like people rarely get personal responses from any other big political organization, campaign, elected official’s office or party.
I already know the answer to that. They are not organized as a party, they are a 501(c)4 political nonprofit, so called “Super PAC”. This is fact. But to get this ticket on the ballot, in some states that technically means they are a party. This is not a contradiction, this is the strangeness of how the law works in various states.
Irregular Times has been a hater of these folks since they were Unity ’08. I’m not interested in asking questions from liberal haters that see evil behind anything that is remotely centrist.
I will, however be asking what their plans are, post primary.
But for half a year, Americans Elect has been declaring on its website that it wants questions and will answer questions as soon as possible. They’ve been answering and meeting with lots of other people with whom they’ve made agreements to keep the answers embargoed. They’ve been meeting with and answering the questions of contributors at (by John Avlon’s tally) more than 400 fundraisers. At their new Get Satisfaction website over the last week, Americans Elect representatives have been answering all kinds of questions… except the ones with content they don’t want to address. The questions Americans Elect doesn’t WANT to answer are exactly the questions that we should keep asking.
How interesting that you interpret my questions as hateful. I don’t feel hate in my heart, and I don’t interpret pointed questions as hateful. I interpret them as legitimate questions that should be answered by any organization that uses words like “open” and “democracy.”
Ultimately it’s your own decision what questions you’ll ask, and I respect that. I am disappointed, though; you have quite an opportunity.
I’ve followed these folks since they were Unity ’08 too, and since you’ve been writing about them a lot I’ve seen what you’ve said. You’re clearly not just looking for facts, you’re looking for reasons to get digs in on them.
I realize I am a blogger, but I don’t use every opportunity I get to get a dig on someone, even when they agree with me on the issues. I’m looking for answers to questions I think are most important and relevant. I understand their legal status, as I said above, so there is no point in me asking about it. State laws are weird, and they’re a 501(c)4.
You are playing at semantics here. If they are getting on ballots and are holding a convention to decide their candidates, they are a political party. Perhaps legally they can hold off till their convention to declare a party, but if they do that to avoid reporting their contributions, it does not inspire faith in their motives.
I’m not playing at semantics at all. A political party is not a subjective term, it actually means something legally, as does a 501(c)4. They are the latter, this is fact.
I think the questions surrounding the hypothetical brokered Electoral College (as noted by other commenters inthis thread) are the most interesting to explore. This strikes me as a very plausible scenario (unlike actually winning the presidency for an AE candidate – which has a zero possibility). One could easily envision an AE candidate with a strong geographic appeal winning a state and electoral votes as a favorite son – say hypothetically – New York. In a close presidential election it would mean that AE would make the fianl decision between the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates. I’d think it would be pretty important for AE supporters to understand exactly what happens in that eventuality at a great level of specificity. But that was already covered here, so I have another question for you that may be more relevant to your blog.
My question is about the AE representations that – as stated on their site and blog – “Americans Elect is a platform. We have no candidate, issues, or ideology of our own.
However, throughout the site and communications from AE, they have been espousing and promoting what they call the “sensible center” and “centrist policies”. In fact their blog has repeatedly endorsed centrist budgetary and fiscal policies such as the gang of six compromise. Now – we who are attracted to this blog may agree with those Centrist policy choices, but they are policy choices, and by definition – an agenda.
So which is it? Are they a platform with no “issues or ideology” of their own? Or are they advocates of a Centrist agenda?
Why would I ask a question I already know the answer to? This is already laid out in their founding documents… they’ll call a convention after the general election, but before the electoral college meets, and the delegates will vote on what to do.
Where have you seen this centrist stuff? The only thing I’ve seen in that regards has been them saying they’re aiming at a democrat and a republican, or possibly an independent replacing on of the two, putting together a centrist ticket. I’d like to see more overtly centrist messaging, but I haven’t see it.
I just did a Google search on their site and there are only two mentions of the word centrist on americanselect.org… one isn’t even talking about them, and the other is quoting David Brooks, who isn’t talking about them either.
Just scanned over the news section of their site… nothing overtly centrist… even less overt than No Labels. More anti-partisan, with moderate undertones. The most overt they get with centrist sentiment is the videos, where the comments they chose to feature from people were mostly non or anti-partisan, with some centrist/moderate stuff mixed in there as well.
Well, one reason would be to let them answer the question, listen to what they say, and assess whether the answer comports with your preconceived notions of who or what they are.
This is from the AE bylaws submitted to the State of Nevada [PDF]:
They subsequently amended the bylaws to change this section. There are more examples here.
I don’t find this objectionable BTW. A Party advocating Centrist policy principles is just fine by me. It just isn’t consistent with what they say they are. So it is a simple and reasonable question – Are they purely about the electoral process? Or are they about policy?
Also keep in mind that this is a corporate structure governed by its bylaws. Nothing wrong with that per se, but if this corporation is going to make the decision between the Republican and Democratic candidates for President in a deadlocked Electoral College, the details in the bylaws are kind of important. Hand waving and wishful thinking does not cut it.
Section 4.1:
Convention rules speficy that the delegates mush operate under convention rules that are established by the Rules Committee, which is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the board.
It’s a good question.
Like I’ve said elsewhere, I’m not in the game of playing gotcha citizen journalism. I’m not going to ask a question I already know the answer to, I’m going to ask questions I don’t know their answers to. If I see them not following through with what they’ve said, I’ll go after them for that, but I’m not going to waste what time I get with them on stuff I already know the answer to, hoping they slip up so I can get a dig on them or something. I don’t play games like that.
The centrist thing is a valid point. I’m going to have to ponder how to phrase that, but I’ll ask something about it.
The rules thing is way too far into the weeds, and is no different than any other political organization. The same thing goes with state party central committees, or in non-party political organizations – a board of some kind.
_or_ the shorter opened ended command:
And please don’t tell us it’s up to us. Show us your commitment to something beyond a vanity effort at the Presidency by say Michael Bloomberg. Before we click “ignore.”
Unless they totally go back on everything they said they were going to do, it *is* up to us, or rather the delegates, to decide what happens.
Or, in other words, you’re saying “answer a question in a way that implies you were lying about giving the delegates control, and if you don’t change your tune… I’ll just dismiss you in advance.”
I’m going to ask them straightforward, substantive questions. If they try to dodge a difficult issue I will call them out on it, but I am not a centrist version of Andrew Brietbart. I’m not interested in ambush tactics and using trick questions to get comments I can twist for my own agenda.
Oh – I wouldn’t worry about surprising them with any ambush questions a la Breitbart.
This operation is run by top gun political P.R. professionals. Your interviewee will have read everything in this thread and already anticipated and answered questions that have not yet occurred to you or me. You are a smart guy, Sol – but you are outgunned here.
(BTW – I have another comment in moderation)
Well duh. If I wanted to try and surprise them with something, I wouldn’t have posted this, haha.
Here is another way of saying why I’m not interested in this sort of question… because all it amounts to is:
You said “_____”. Did you mean it?
That’s a pointless question. I’m going to ask things I’m confused about, like the thing you mentioned above about changes in their messaging regarding taking a more nonpartisan tack lately, where they took a more overtly centrist tack earlier on apparently. Or I’m going to ask questions that I haven’t seen them answer.
I look forward to seeing your report.
I would also ask this backup question regarding the electoral college coalition scenario:
If you form a coalition with a major party how will you be able to promote AE in the future as being truly apart from the major parties and not in league with one of them as opposed to standing your ground and having those votes cast for the AE ticket?
Nobody said anything about forming a coalition, and the delegates will decide what to do, not the staff, so I see any point in asking the Press Secretary a question about something the staff has no control over, should that scenario come to be.
Actually they do say something about forming a coalition
http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/full-text-of-americans-elect-bylaws-as-of-july-1-2011/
9.4.2. Coalition Agreement. The Americans Elect ticket receives fewer popular votes nationally than the ticket of at least one of the major political parties and the Americans Elect Delegates have convened in convention after the popular vote but before the Electoral College vote and endorsed a candidate of either major political party on such terms and conditions as may be reflected in the vote of endorsement, in which case the person serving as Elector shall vote solely in the affirmative for the endorsed candidate and for no other candidate.
That’s just a heading of a section of their bylaws, and it doesn’t say they’re going to form a coalition, it says they’re going to make a “Coalition *AGREEMENT*” – not a lasting coalition. All this says is what was said above, that they’ll let the delegates decide what to do with collected electoral votes.
Even if its temporary, it will subject them to criticism for being aligned with one of the major parties. If they are hijacked by one side or the other it might not be inaccurate. I see a temporary coalition forming rather than an electoral vote for the AE ticket without a coalition agreement as a potentially damaging and dangerous thing to any long term centrist agenda.
Thinking more about this…
This does beg the question of why the AE corporation/delegates/board/secret contributors/whatever should have anything to say about how the Electors cast their vote if it comes down to a brokered Electoral College.
Lets go hypothetical again: It is November 7, 2012. The people of New York have voted to put their confidence in the AE candidate Michael Bloomberg. The voters of New York are not AE delegates. They are the people of New York State. They did not vote to put their electors in the hands of the AE corporation or in another vote of national AE delegates. They voted for a candidate – Michael Bloomberg. Why should Michael Bloomberg not decide what to do with his electoral votes? If he wins the New York electoral votes, he is individually the representative of the wishes of the people of New York state. Not AE and not AE delegates.
It’s not “corporation/delegates/board/secret contributors/whatever” who has any say of how the electors vote in the case of this scenario, it’s just the delegates. How does it not make sense to give them the option to retask the electors? Makes a lot more sense to me to let the wider group do that than the candidate.
Really. Using my hypothetical example –
How do you think the people of New York are going to feel when they wake up on November 7th and learn that you in Omaha and me in San Francisco are going to vote on whether New York’s 31 Electoral are handed to the Republican or Democratic candidates? They voted their 31 votes for Michael Bloomberg. They didn’t vote to give their electoral votes to you and me.
I wonder if there is a constitutional issue here.
New York is gonna have to suck it up. If they are AE voters then then they were in the plurality/majority and they already knew the score. If the voters were with the losing candidate then they were the losers and now have no say in it.
Kinda like when the nation’s Democratic voters found out in 2000 that they had more than a half a million more votes nationwide than the Republican candidate and yet didn’t have their candidate win due to some screwy ballots, a nefarious State Election Chief who purged voter registrations and a party vote Supreme Court.
Brad, Have you ever met a New Yorker?
Are you kidding? I can’t tell.
And that is the reason why under the current setup I will not vote for an AE ticket.
Choosing to vote for a Centrist is appealing, having a Coalition with a major party based on a 51%+ favorability of delegates when the deck could be stacked by one side of the partisan divide does not.
Under that condition I’d vote for either the major party candidate I preferred, vote for a different third party like the libertarians or write in.
Bingo. I think this just was not completely thought through by AE. I would not be surprised to see this prvisionchanged in the bylaws if it is not too late to do so.
Assuming they get on all 50 state ballots and come up with a credible candidate they will be undone by just this one provision alone. It is too easy to run against. Both mainstream party candidates will be loud and clear telling their supporters that a vote for the AE ticket is a vote to disenfranchise their state in the Electoral College. A vote for AE is a vote to let the other 49 states choose how to allocate their electoral votes.
This is a fatal flaw in the AE process. This is why it is important to get deep in the weeds when vetting those advocating new ways to elect our president.
It’s a plus in my eyes, and don’t assume that people will not like something for the same reasons as you don’t… especially when it comes to obscure bylaw stuff like this. People look at the ticket and the overall picture., not stuff like this. Only weird people like us look this deep.
Dividist,
“fatal flaw”?! Hardly.
You mean just like it is fatal for anyone of Democratic background to vote in Texas or a Republican to vote in NY or California knowing that their votes are wasted because there is no way that they are going to matter since it is winner take all in these states.
Just like it is fatal for voters in +35 states to vote because they aren’t in battelground states. I don’t hear the major parties telling their supporters to roll over and play dead in those 35 states.
Your argument is weak that this will disruptive and a leverage issue for major party candidates. Most voters are clueless to Electoral College political math. I wouldn’t mind them being educated though. Really all the Dems and Reps will do in the campaign is demonize each other as bigoted greedy fascists or baby eating athiestic communists (you draw the line to the party). I do suspect that one of the major parties will have heartache once an AE candidate it nominated and that candidate’s partisan leaning (Rep or Dem) is determined/perceived as a threat to losing popular votes for their candidate.
Agreed. They’ll vote for the top of the ticket, not minutiae like this.
How the New York State electoral vote is cast in the 2012 Presidential Election is hardly “minutiae”. If the AE ticket has any success at all, these specific bylaws will determine exactly how the next president is selected. Hardly “minutiae”.
I guess I have a great deal more confidence in the intelligence and common sense of the American electorate. This in not hard to understand and it is fall-off-a-log easy to explain. To Whit: If you in New York vote for the AE ticket you are, by the AE bylaws, voting to give up New York’s 31 Electoral votes and letting the rest of the country decide decide whether New York will select Mitt Romney or Barack Obama. What New Yorker will vote for that?
Feel free to substitute the state of your choice.
Even if you do not appreciate just how devastating that meme will be in a campaign, I expect that Americans Elect will figure it out. They will change these bylaws if they can.
“How the New York State electoral vote is cast in the 2012 Presidential Election is hardly “minutiae”. If the AE ticket has any success at all, these specific bylaws will determine exactly how the next president is selected. Hardly “minutiae”.”
Anything in the bylaws, IS minutiae. If you think very many people are going to look at this at that depth, you really don’t understand how most people interact with the political world.
And don’t give me BS like trying to characterize what I’m saying as calling people stupid for not getting into the bylaws of the organizations they are a part of. I’ve never done anything but skim the bylaws of any organization I’ve ever been a part of, unless I’ve been a part of their founding, and I’m more active politically than somewhere in the neighborhood of 99.8% of people.
Do some research on how people interact with politics before you project your own ideas onto them. When I say people aren’t interested in minutiae like this, I say that because I’ve actually read research that talked about the level of political engagement people want to have, and it is nothing even remotely close to what you suggest. As I said before, it is only weirdos like us who look that deep.
And I hope they don’t change this aspect. Makes a heck of a lot more sense to put the decision as to where the electoral votes would go in that scenario in the hands of the delegates at large than it would to put it into the hands of the candidates, organizational insiders, or any other such thing. The major appeal of AE is that they are providing a platform, that the delegates use to express their will.
Sol,
You are completely missing the point. You either take AE seriously or you do not. If you do not, then it is minutiae, because they are not relevant, not a threat and indeed no one will read the bylaws.
If you take them seriously, and they actually get some traction in any state, no one will need to read the bylaws, because the ramifications of an AE win in that state will be shouted from the rooftops by competing campaigns, bloggers,partisan of both parties, and the mainstream media. The state is disenfranchised in the Electoral College if the AE candidate wins the state and does not win the presidency. This should be obvious to anyone.
I’m glad you’ve read books about how people interact with politics. I hope the book has a chapter on how people react when disenfranchised.
Second, the comment about intelligence of voters was not directed at you. It was in response to Brad’s comment that “Most voters are clueless to Electoral College political math” That is not my experience. I could see how you might be confused since we’ve reached the limit of comment nests. Probably a clue that this discussion has gone far enough.
Anyway – I’ve said my peace. I’m happy with the case I’ve made. Your blog. Your last word.
That’s a ridiculous standard. With this, you’re saying the only time I’ve ever been serious was with the organizations I’ve started myself.
I think giving the delegates the vote to decide is exactly what they should do. It’s just what YOU think. I know that lots of people wont be talking about the bylaws, but I don’t know how people would react, and neither do you. Pretending otherwise is absurd.
Most folks who would vote for an AE ticket would not likely read the Bi-laws, they aren’t even posted on the AE site you know but you have to look elsewhere for them.
If AE has success it is likely that folks may indeed be disenfranchised. Some folks here are willing to go along with that and some folks aren’t. Some may be surprised and upset because they didn’t read the bi laws and those folks wont likely support AE again in the future.
Me, I wont have that problem because I will not support AE unless they change their bi-laws on this. I value my vote to much to see it be used against my wishes.
Another thing I have to wonder is how many delegates who will vote on AE stuff have no intent to vote for AE candidates, just to try to use bi laws such as this to influence the use of the winnings of a ticket they did not even vote for…..
Had a nice very short chat with a doctor today, while out and about, who asked me what I did, which led to my scheduled chat with the Press Secretary (which went well, will write a post about it tonight)… the guy said he wasn’t super political, but he’s paying a bit more attention lately, and is just sick of the crazies on both sides, specifically mentioning how the GOP freaked him out on the debt ceiling, and he was disappointed to hear about the whole Tea Party as terrorists story from the left. I get that a surprising amount of the time when I randomly talk to people I don’t know… those are the core of what AE will want to go after.
Unless someone like Rush Limbaugh makes a stink about that detail, I don’t see that being very sizable at all. I think it’s more likely (actually HOW likely… no way to know really) that a rush of partisans comes in and votes for the perceived weakest candidate, or the one that might damage the other side more.
Leonidas,
Are you upset when candidates of major parties’ nominations “release” their delegates to vote for other candidates at conventions?
Hey Dude! Nice work!
Internet voting security questions:
Who, or what company, set up and will operate their Internet voting server? How can we be sure there won’t be another DC like hack? What are their checks against insider shenanigans – i.e., who is watching them? Is it somebody from outside the inner circle, or do we have to trust the inner circle to be honest?
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Hi Sol!
Second thoughts: I respectfully suggest that you have an Internet voting security and election integrity section in your interview.
The biggest problem they are going to have after they run their election will be defending the integrity of the Internet voting process. Remember Ohio in 2004? A lot of vocal people cried “foul,” because the DREs were suspected of being rigged. Opponents of Internet voting will say that the program could have been fixed to elect a specific person, or to prevent the election of someone. They must be able to defend the integrity of their system, or the whole exercise will be a laughing stock.
Malicious code can be slipped in to their operating system, do its dirty work, and then erase itself so that it will be undetectable. This can be done anywhere along the line, from the original programmer through everyone with access to their server. A security guard could do it with a USB at night. BTY will they have one server in one location, or more than one in different locations? How will physical access to their server be controlled?
Are they using “open source” software – that is, code that any computer scientist can inspect for its integrity? If they are offering the public open source code, how do we know that it is the same code running their server? They could pull the ole switch arue.
Before the election folks will want to know how they are planning to protect themselves from a denial of service attack (DOS). Will they have an intrusion detection capability? The system in DC claimed to have such capability, but it failed. The Board of Elections did not learn about the intrusion by Halderman until voters called in to complain about the football fight song.
How can they insure the one person, one vote principle? That is, how will they prevent anyone from voting early and often? Checking voter registration will be a nightmare, and may be impossible in many cases. They could have around two million voters. How on Earth can they be sure that each one votes just once? Can they defend against “program voting,” or “robo voting”?
Suppose they deny the vote to someone because they say she isn’t registered, or otherwise eligible? How will they defend themselves from a law suit (for breach of contract, or for damage to reputation, or emotional distress)? Will every voter have to sign a universal waiver of all their rights?
Who will be in control of the vote count? Like I said: What are their checks against insider shenanigans – i.e., who is watching them? Is it somebody from outside the inner circle, or do we have to trust the inner circle to be honest?
Do they plan to have someone from outside their inner circle who can have access to all of their inner circle members, and later vouch for the trust-worthiness of the AE team?
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
[email protected]
http://www.youtube.com/user/WJKPhD
I don’t have time to ask all of these questions, but I will be asking them about security and verifying the delegates, which wont be too difficult in states where they have voter registration (and hence voter files you can buy) but I don’t know how they can do that in states that don’t have that.
This is a good set of concerns about not just internet voting, but about any centralized non-transparent election. If a contractor was hired to run the election and had a great security credentials, could we be confident that they were not selected for being willing to guarantee a particular result.
This is an intractable problem in unaccountable, top down, “populist” organizations.
I was able to find out who is responsible for their security, and it’s no lightweight, nor is it a contractor.
What’s the alternative to hiring someone to run their security with a history in keeping important data (in this case the guy’s job history was in the field of keeping financial data secure) secure?
THIS!
Huh?
I was just seconding WJK’s initial question. It seems you don’t waste nearly as much time on Reddit as I do, lol :-)
None would be more like it :) I’m too busy responding to comments, reading news, blogging and website building to have yet another torrent of information for my brain to handle.
Oh BTW Solomon I’d love to see a list of recommended sites from you outside the centersphere. I don’t really care if they are left, right, or center as long as they are good sites and stimulating to thought or debate.
I’ll throw a few of mine at you so you might get an idea of what I mean, you probably know most of these but should give you an idea of what I’m asking..
http://www.bookerrising.net/
Black conservative sight but tends to have some good writing and interesting thought.
http://www.frumforum.com/
Don’t always agree with Frum but he isn’t just a blind follower of a party.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/
Raging lefty but tends to document well and sometimes raises interesting points, and isn’t afraid to attack democrats from the left.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
Right leaning but has good polls and such
http://www.volokh.com/
Some great discussions and posts on law.
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/
Sabato has some interesting election analysis
The updated and expanded Centersphere on the new site will have sites with moderate streaks (like Booker and Frum), and genuinely journalistic sites (like Sabato), but not solidly liberal or conservative sites like Salon or Volokh. RCP is a great place for polling aggregation.
At first it’ll mostly be a directory with a bit of info on each site and organization, but over time we’re (Jess Chapman and I) going to interview them and flesh the pages out so people can get more detailed profiles of the sites and organizations.
ok cool, although I don’t primarily think of Volokh as a conservative site but more of a legal issues surrounding politics site. I do admit it certainly focuses on this more likely to concern conservatives. You probably notice it more because I lean a bit further right/libertarian than you do though, so I certainly trust your judgement call on this.
It’s been forever since I took in much of what they had there. I could be convinced to give it another look if you told me it has a moderate streak to it, even if it’s more conservative… like Booker for instance. It’s going to take several months to work through the profiles, and sites like that wouldn’t be a priority until later, but I could put it on the long term to do list.
I don’t see it so much as having a centrist streak, but rather a wide non partisan legal streak. Its concern seems to be more on court rulings and analysis rather than a partisan agenda. I don’t dispute that it leans a bit right, but when it is focused on casework it is more of a legalese type discussion.
I wouldn’t prioritize it though, you got plenty to do and there are a lot of sites out there some that probably are much more deserving of your attention.
Leonidas implies an interesting idea to me. Presumably we have useful go-to sites for domain-specific content. He likes Volokh for legal issues. I like marginal revolution for economics.
So what sites do centrists consider to have good content on related topics. I feel that reading MR has helped me to absorb a lot of useful perspectives.
I agree a centrist/moderate link list that was divided by content type, say politics, economics, legal issues, etc would be quite nice.
The directory is just going to be split up by type… as in blogs, think tanks, political organizations, parties, individuals, etc. Could certainly have tags saying that certain blogs focus on things other than generally just politics though.
Also pretty easy to set up wikis… so maybe, parallel to the index, there could be something approved members could flesh out.
Why do they think that the resulting ticket from their nomination process would do any better at governing the country than Obama-Biden when the real source of dysfunction and gridlock clearly is in Congress? Wouldn’t a more comprehensive effort to change the ideological composition of Congress deliver better results?
Have to agree there, the home run attempts at the Presidency are less likely to deliver real results in my opinion.
To me the best avenue for centrists right now would be a 2 pronged approach.
1. Continue efforts to fight against and draw attention to ballot access discrimination
2. Primary challenges where an incumbent who was non moderate/centrist and there was room to appeal to voters more to the middle either by putting for candidate or by supporting and endorsing more moderate candidates from the same party. I think a centrist movement can have more impact at this stage than in the general elections where voters sometimes turn a blind eye to individual candidates because they are willing to put up with a bad candidate to help achieve a majority for the party they lean towards. Most “independents” studies have show do have fairly strong party preferences, so to me it makes more sense to direct the most effort to Congressional primaries.
1) These efforts should continue, but we should not stop working for more power within the current system in the mean time. The more power we have, the more likely we’ll be able to pass these sorts of reforms, and the more these reforms are passes, the more power we’ll get in the long run… they feed off each other.
2) As I’ve said several times, we don’t have the option to retask Americans Elect’s efforts. They’re doing this. The only we have as individuals, bloggers, activists, etc is whether we’ll get involved or not.
And I met with guy in Omaha today who wrote a book about moderate politics (Larry Bradley – His book: Neither Liberal Nor Conservative Be: An Action Plan for People Disgusted By Polarized Politics) and realized that what Americans Elect is doing is much like what Ken Block did in Rhode Island this past year. Ken, who blogs here from time to time, knew that he didn’t have much of a chance of winning, but he needed to get 5% or more of the ballot for his party, the Moderate Party of Rhode Island (a trailblazing organization for people like us) to be a ballot qualified party up and down the ballot for the next four years. Apply this general idea nationally. As it says in the bylaws, what happens next is up to the delegates, so if we collectively get involved, help build a national network, and collectively decide to – we can turn this into the beginnings of the national opposition party we so desperately need.
2) I wasn’t talking about retasking AE, I was just saying that I feel that at the present time if centrist want to be the most effective they should focus on primaries more than general elections. I don’t see much of that type of orientation right now and I think that is an oversight by centrists.
I’m 500% with you on wishing folks tilting at windmills starting national efforts (Modern Whigs, National Centrist Party, etc) would focus on state level organizing.
If I were these millionaire types funding this, I’d have put my money into a big 527, with the specific intent of seeding centrist state parties, but that isn’t an option. This is happening. Our only choice is how we take part.
Amen to the need for activist groups to deprioritize the presidential election!
Americans Elect reinforces the undue amount of attention given to this election where the chance of our votes making a diff are abysmally low…
dlw
Great get Sol, and thanks for opening the floor for questions. Here’s a question I’d like to pose, which I don’t think has already appeared above:
“A lot of people who want alternatives to the Democrats and Republicans support a bottom-up electoral strategy, electing candidates to local government, state legislature and the House and Senate. Why has Americans Elect chosen to nominate candidates only for the office of president? Why will you not allow candidates to run for lower offices on your ballot line? Are you categorically against such a strategy, or are you open to such a strategy in the future?”
Or something.
I do have a question very similar to this on my list. My guess it’s because they don’t have the resources to do both, but we’ll see what they say.
I was thinking maybe there was a monetary issue. But if they have the ballot line, then it really wouldn’t cost them any money if their delegates organize to get someone onto a ballot for a lower office, if they already have the ballot line. Unless there’s some kind of distinction between ballot access for a presidential race and all other races, which I think may be the case in some states.
@ Ash: Yes.
Could they complement giving Americans another option in our presidential election with the promotion of increasing the electoral diversity in the USA, so would use more than just first-past-the-post election rules? This could be done by giving voters more options (IRV or Approval or a hybridization of the two) in the final selection of their candidate and by the use of some form of proportional representation in their earlier rounds.
dlw
What the heck… 40 some comments disappeared. There were over 100 yesterday…
Will you consider pushing for the Electoral College to become the second stage of a presidential election by adopting a similar framework for your selection?
Let the next to final round be with seven candidates, let everyone be made to pick their top three of the seven candidates. Let them also pick three of seven elector candidates for their or region. Let there be an odd number, n, of regions. Let the 3*n electors then elect the finalist. Let the three finalists pick their vice presidential candidate from among the other six candidates, and don’t require that they pick someone from another party…
Maybe demonstrating a better way to pick a president could do more good than the specific candidate selected ever would…
dlw
You’re going to have to explain that again. I don’t even understand what you’re saying.
This is an interview, not a “hey, while we’re talking, why don’t you let me tell you how I think you should run your organization” kind of thing. I will be asking them what their process will be.
My point is that they have a great potential to critique the way we elect our politicians by how they select their own candidate.
Most of the debate about the Electoral College is between two sides. Those who want a National Popular Vote and those who want to keep the Electoral College. If we used a two stage election, we could do both at the same time. We could first limit the number of candidates on the ballot in early November to seven. We could then require everyone to pick their 3 favorite candidates by listing all 35 ways you can pick 3 of 7 candidates (as well as a “none of the above”). The three candidates who get picked the most would go to the Electoral College where electors who are selected in the same way would determine the next president by voting within a week until one candidate gets a majority.
The next part is to require the 3 finalists to pick their vice-presidential candidate from among the other 6 candidates in the general primary. This would also help to keep the election more “friendly”. It could be done without requiring that they pick someone who is not of their party.
I know that the choice is theirs, but it’d be to their advantage to make elections more “interesting” by having them be a critique of the way we elect our president. As I understand it, they plan a multi-stage approach. My point is this could be tweaked to increase the “air time” given to their organization…
dlw
Okay, now I understand.
But no, like I said, I’m not using this as a venue to tell them how I think they should run their organization, and they aren’t an issue organization, so changing how the system works isn’t in their purview.
Plus I think your idea is terrible, but that’s neither here nor there and we’ve already gotten into that on other blogs. No point in rehashing.
In general though, if they morph into a party or expand into issue advocacy, questions regarding election reform would certainly be appropriate.
WRT Parag 1:But they are trying to change how the system works. They are tacitly advocating for an “open” primary where everyone can vote. And so I think they should do more than just that…
WRT Parag 2:It’s not the same idea we locked horns on before, but its’ basic point is the same. The use of a winner-doesn’t-take-all election (for the first stage) would not give candidates incentives to attack each other relentlessly, especially when voters must vote for more than one candidate. The use of a 2 stage election is done in France and Finland. It’s an easy improvement, but the second stage is expensive and so our Electoral College provides us a way we could do it without as much cost. As for the VP idea, it is inspired by the intent of the writers of the US Constitution for the VP office. It would further make our most important election more positive and issue-oriented. It would help to create a political center.
For people don’t get it. It’s the system and it’s incentives that are at fault. A new party or an “outsider” candidate isn’t going to change very much.
WRT Parag 3: Obviously, that’s your call. I stand by my point above that their idea makes more sense as a way to critique the election process than a realistic way to elect a better president.
dlw
Upon a re-skim, I gotta repeat myself by stressing that we’ve duplicated an emergent vibe that is anti-congress. How about a thread where we brainstorm ways to capitalize on this vibe, amplify it, and track it. Centrists and independents are better poised to capitalize on this than partisans. Who, btw, will try to co-opt this vibe by spinning into the umpteenth version of “reasons to vote for our side if congress makes you made.”
That evergreen partisan spin, which is a stealthy call to “lather, rinse, repeat” that usually fools folks, needs to be exposed, and now the time is ripe.
BTW, as it relates more directly to this thread,If Americans Elect want to be the vehicle of independents, I’ll ride along if the only bus. But I want them to stress congressional reform, either in addition to a 3rd party Presidential candidate, or instead of that emphasis. A small handful of viable candidates from a few regions would make a nice start.
And I think that a very strong argument can be made that electing 2, 3, 4, 5 independent congressfolk would represent a much more enduring feather in the cap than a 1-cycle 3rd partyish incursion. Especially because such success would lead almost immediately to the next effort 2 years hence. It’s a more sustainable approach.
I didn’t sleep well last night, and had to get up really early, so forgive me if I’m misreading… but you want to see a post on what again? If you know what this post would ideally say, shoot it to me through the contact form and I’ll almost for sure post it.
They’ve indicated that the delegates will decide where the organization evolves, although it would seem like that evolution isn’t slated to happen until after this cycle. I agree – much of my reasoning for saying that people would do well to get involved is this is the best opportunity we’ve had in 20 years to build a network of activists nationally, and I agree that we need to put more energy on building state level organizations, and running serious candidates for lower office, so they can build political capital, gain connections, learn the skills of politickin’ and run for higher office.
Will try to do this weekend. maybe even tonight.
You gotta admit that if folks had to pick their 3 favorites from 7 candidates then this tendency would be weakened. And then, if the winner from the 3 finalists were picked by a majority of a randomized subset of the AE voters, who also had to pass some non-financial, political interest test, then it could further improve the quality control.
dlw
My question: If Republicans nominate an extremist Tea Party type, will Americans Elect withdraw from the race in order to prevent splitting the non-extremist vote? (Remember: If no one wins an Electoral College majority, the top three candidates go to the House of Representatives, with one vote per state, which in this House as in the Democratic one before it [because of state-by-state breakdowns] would ensure Republican victory.)
Jeff,
So you are suggesting that AE forgo their $20 million investment in ballot access efforts for increasing choices for voters? I think you know the answer. I am surprised you didn’t use the word “spoiler”.
They did so with Unity08. At least some of their donors are businessmen/women who know how to recognize when to cut losses on a bleeding investment.
Different beast. FEC choked off Unity08 with a different political classification that didn’t allow Unity08 to be able to raise sufficient funds.
As Brad said… they did not chooce to close Unity ’08, they did so because a court ruling bankrupted them, since they could only do what they wanted to do if they could raise unlimited funds from individual donors. The court ruling, which has since been overturned, said that they could only raise $5k per donor, and then they promptly shut down for lack of funds.
T-Minus 15 minutes until I will be asking Elliot Ackerman a similar question myself.
I can already answer that. I asked a very similiar question before and it was no. They’re doing this, and the delegates will decide what happens.
thanks Brad & Solomon for answers & corrections
So when will the results of the interview be published?
dlw
I decided to keep it all secret…
Just kidding. Catching up with some stuff. Will be punching out a couple things on it later tonight.
Why should I vote for an average Joe to be the next president? Is there no filtering based on experience, competence or IQ?
Yes, there is a general filter for non-serious candidates. People who apply will have to have some kind of profile that fits that of a potentially major politician. This is not a direct quote from when I talked to Elliot Ackerman yesterday, but essentially, besides not allowing two of the same party, they have to be some kind of major former elected official or a well known and respected figure of some kind. Ultimately it will come down to the delegates to decide, so if people like us aren’t active, then it becomes more likely that someone who is technically allowed, but is a fringe candidate, will get in.
Here’s an article on why we should not look to a third party centrist candidate.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-masketnoel-indies-20110810,0,128833.story
All that says is that it isn’t likely to win. Winning isn’t the only reason to go with Americans Elect.
It does make it clear that we need other reasons to go with AE. My view, as stated before, is that AE would do the most good if they could get a lot of public attention to the great need for electoral reform(s) in the USA.
dlw
Again with the broken record.
They aren’t an issue advocacy organization. They have NO stances on any issues.
They have not overtly taken any stances, but actions speak louder than words and their actions inevitably critique the way we elect our leaders. At issue are the details…
dlw
I’m working on a splitting the giant amount of material I got into several posts that deal with one major issue. One of the things they hammered through was that the delegates have entire control of the process. Ackerman said he didn’t think it would happen, but the process does indeed allow delegates to draft whoever they want, and if hard core partisan candidate pulls a Buchanan on them (ala Reform Party circa 2000, for those who don’t get the reference) and can pull in hundreds of thousands of delegates to their banner, and not enough centrists and moderates get involved and push for mainstream candidates, they can take the ticket and have something like a tea party independent teaming up with a republican, libertarian, constitution party or something to that effect.
The people running the show there do all seem to be moderates, but they believe that putting up a totally open system will result in a mainstream bipartisan ticket. The system does not allow for the staff to thwart the will of the delegates.
Interestingly, according to Eugene McCarthy in his book, “No Fault Politics”, the Electoral College was initially designed by the writers of the US constitution to give a similar freedom to the electors in the selection of the US president.
It’s a leap of faith in enuf folks being willing to do the right thing to keep the system from being routed by fringe groups. Unfortunately, as US politics quickly got very polarized, the freedom was revoked so that electors had to vote the way they were assigned to vote.
dlw
Not even apples and oranges… that’s like apples and ceiling tiles. This puts the process in the hands of anyone who registers. The electoral college put it in the hands of a few hundred people.
It is a leap of faith. Frankly I wish they had some concrete rules, and rather than being nonpartisan they were overtly moderate to centrist. That’s not the case, but what it makes very clear is the importance of everyone to get involved. If we don’t, the possibility of fringe types using it to their advantage will lurk… just waiting for some famous winger to jump in.
Their transpartisan approach appeals to me, but I do wonder about the spoiler effect. What’s more, I’ve heard suggestions that this effect may be deliberate, which sounded a bit far-fetched to me but now I can’t get the conspiracy theory out of my head. So I would want to ask about AE’s associations (financial and otherwise) with particular political figures and groups (Cato? Grover Norquist?). I wouldn’t want to sound like the left’s version of Glenn Beck’s chalkboard, but it’s a question.
The people running the show there are all personally moderates politically, but the system itself is totally open, so whoever brings the most delegates will win. No chance they’re a pawn of either side. Bunch of people from both sides coming up with conspiracy theories about them being a spoiler for their side… but the spoiler effect is a ridiculous idea in the first place, especially when whoever the nominees are will be determined by the delegates only.
If someone votes for who they want to spend THEIR vote on, there can be no spoiler. It’s far more of a spoiler when people vote for lesser evils because they don’t have any good options.
The “spoiler” issue is something to keep in mind. A third-party ticket that leans too far left or too far right would likely split supporters on one side and hand the election to the side whose ranks are not divided. That’s why it’s important for an AE ticket to be as “centrist” as possible so it can draw support equally from both sides of the political spectrum.
The Perot candidacy in 1992 is instructive. It is an enduring myth that Perot siphoned conservative votes from George Bush and gave the election to Bill Clinton. In fact, exit polling showed that Perot drew equally from Bush and Clinton. Thirty-eight percent of Perot voters would have voted for Bush and 38 percent would have voted for Clinton if Perot had not been on the ballot. I have a PDF copy of the New York Times article reporting the exit poll results — if anyone wants to see it.
This will also be a key defense against charges by the other two camps that AE’s third-party ticket can only be a spoiler and “hand the White House to the party you like the least.” Furthermore, AE’s contingency plan to use its electoral votes for a brokered outcome is a shrewd strategy. It further shields AE from spoiler accusations of throwing the election into the House of Representatives — probably everyone’s worst nightmare.
Accordingly, I cannot fathom arguments that AE’s electoral vote strategy and coalition contingency plan with another party could be used against it as a campaign issue. People don’t care who receives their state’s electoral votes. They care about who wins the White House. In that regard, a good outcome for AE would accelerate support for sensibly reforming presidential elections through the National Popular Vote plan.
Finally, Solomon — you had your interview with Elliot Ackerman on August 9. When are you going to post a more detailed account of that? And is today the day AE is supposed to announce more information on their website?
If American Elect has a Ticket in 2012 it will need a platform. We are an aging population with aging infrastructure and a socio/economic environment where the ratio of productive worker to total population will continue to go down. How will this new leadership address these fundamental issues? Please give us 3 positions that will become the major planks in your platform.