By Rebecca Boyle
Electronic Voting Machines is for insects via Flickr
American politicians have promised to return power to the people for as long as Americans have been voting. But anyone who pays attention knows that the average citizen has very little voice in Washington. Now a new startup that uses an Internet-sourced, social-media-inspired, American Idol-esque approach could be the change we can really believe in.
The new company, Americans Elect, is on the verge of submitting 1.6 million signatures, a prerequisite to secure a spot on the 2012 California presidential ballot. This is just the beginning of their ambitious 50-state campaign. What sets Americans Elect apart is their plan to host an open nominating process, a unique approach inspired by social media and American Idol. Their goal? To build a viable third party ticket in every state, a feat that could reshape the future of voting, as explained by Thomas Friedman at the New York Times .
The heart of Americans Elect's process lies in recruiting delegates. These delegates can be anyone with an interest in national government, regardless of ideology. They are then matched with others who share similar interests, allowing for open and democratic discussions on political priorities. This unique approach leads to the drafting of a candidate who truly represents the views of the delegates. Each candidate must present a video platform explaining their positions, and after a three-round tournament in April 2012, the candidate pool will be reduced to six, each of whom will have to pick a running mate.
While Americans Elect is a third party initiative, it is not seeking to replace the existing parties. In fact, it requires each potential ticket to include one member of each existing party. This means a Democrat would have to run with a Republican or independent, and a Republican with a Democrat or independent. This unique requirement, reminiscent of a Jack Lemmon/James Garner plotline, may seem to undermine the idea of a third party. However, it's an interesting idea that could potentially use the Internet to democratize the democratic process.
Friedman is quite excited about this idea, predicting that Americans Elect will do for our current gridlocked duopoly “what Amazon.com did to books, what the blogosphere did to newspapers, what the iPod did to music, what drugstore.com did to pharmacies.” (He does not include "what pets.com did for pet stores.)
This seems a tad optimistic given the state of national politics, but hey, the Internet can solve lots of other problems, so why not this?
In June, an online national nominating convention will choose a final candidate, who would then be on the ballot under the Americans Elect party in all 50 states.
Sorry, Stephen Colbert and the Super Pac — the rules say any nominee must be “considered someone of similar stature to our previous presidents.” (Although one could argue Colbert is more serious than some of them.)
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