Americans Elect, a platform that set out with the hope of becoming the first online presidential primary in U.S. history, has failed to field a candidate for the 2012 race to the White House.
None of the 52 possible candidates — not even popular mavericks such as Rep. Ron Paul and Gov. Buddy Roemer — gathered enough support to make it to the online convention process scheduled for June, per the platform's rules. Americans Elect had previously delayed the convention, reportedly because of the unusually long Republican primary.
Ileana Watchel, the group's national press secretary, announced in a statement Thursday afternoon that Americans Elect would not alter its procedures any further to accomodate the current top candidates.
"Americans Elect, from the outset, has been a rules-based process, with the rules publicly available and open to debate by the delegates," wrote Watchel. "The rules, as developed in consultation with the Americans Elect delegates, are clear.
"As of this week, no candidate achieved the national support threshold required to enter the Americans Elect Online Convention in June. The primary process for the Americans Elect nomination has come to an end."
Americans Elect is not a political party, but rather a vehicle for getting presidential and vice presidential candidates on ballots nationwide through a process that lived almost entirely online.
The idea, according to the organizers, is to capitalize on the Internet's ability to connect like-minded people to disrupt the two-party system and revolutionize how the American political system works.
"The number-one goal is to produce a presidential ticket of great quality that wouldn't normally be able to run under the party primary [structure]," Chief Technology Officer Josh Levine told Mashable in February.
Americans Elect has thousands of participants and a line on the ballot in 29 states for the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
Users can support either "declared" candidates, who acknowledge they're running on the Americans Elect ballot, or "draft" candidates, who haven't made that decision.
The top declared candidate is former Louisiana Governor Buddy Romer, whose campaign went all-in on Americans Elect after failing to make headway in the Republican nominating contest. The top draft candidate is Ron Paul, who is still running for the Republican nomination.
Some, including Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig, have hailed Americans Elect as a solution to what they view as a broken political system. Others have expressed concern about its funding sources.
CEO Kahlil Byrd announced the failure of any one candidate to pass the threshold on Tuesday. However, he added that the organization's leadership would take two days to discuss whether to alter the process. A statement he released read in part:
. . .as of today, no candidate has reached the national support threshold required to enter the 'Americans Elect Online Convention' this June," read Byrd's statement. "Because of this, under the rules that AE delegates ratified, the primary process would end today. There is, however, an almost universal desire among delegates, leadership and millions of Americans who have supported Americans Elect to see a credible candidate emerge from this process. Americans Elect will announce the results of [our] conversations on Thursday, May 17.
Do you think an entirely-online political primary could work in the future? Tell us why or why not in the comments.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, pagadesign
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