The Times-Picayune, the daily newspaper of New Orleans, notes in this story that there are now more votes on the Americans Elect web page in support of Stephen Colbert for President than for Buddy Roemer. As the story says, Ron Paul continues leading the Americans Elect balloting.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Ouch!!!
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In his best state, Paul has only 2/9 of the minimum level of support needed from 10 states.
The formula really has a large state bias – somewhat like the Electoral College. Ironic considering the goals.
If they want to ensure distributional support, they should use something like Population/30000 from states with 1/2 the population.
Buddy Roemer is currently a candidate for the GOP nomination, as much of America remains blissfully unaware. However, if he decides to pursue the AE platform, after a reasonable amount of time passes, then this would be news. As it is, his GOP poll numbers would be the appropriate topic of conversation. Except that the pollsters don’t actually query his support.
Additionally, the summary report here fails to mention that Barack Obama is currently in the 4th position on the AE website with 753, besting Colbert by a whopping 347. If anything, it makes AE look kind of goofy. Of course, it’s still only getting started with its business.
One really should not look to the Times-Picayune’s headlines for news. It’s funny that anyone would.
@5 AE has no official platform, but Roemer has in fact said he wants the AE nomination, and is thus the only one of the top draft candidates so far to have done so.
Huntsman has already endorsed Romney. Obama wouldn’t run against himself. Ron Paul probably won’t want to subject his son to having the elder Paul blamed for getting Obama elected again, thus ruining a promising career for Rand Paul; and, even if Paul does bolt, it would probably be to the LP, not to AE.
Bloomberg is an interesting case. There’s been suspicion all along that he is the real candidate hiding behind AE as a facade. He was never among the top tracked candidates, but is now among the top supported ones. However, he hasn’t made it official, at least not as of yet. Maybe he wants to see how the Republican race shapes up. For that matter Huntsman could possibly change his mind based on that as well.
It will be interesting to see if Colbert and/or Jon Stewart do something with their AE “candidacies.”
4 –
“The formula really has a large state bias – somewhat like the Electoral College.”
Care to substantiate the claim that the Electoral College has a bias towards large states?
Tom Friedman today used his Sunday Times column to tout a third party, though AE went unmentioned. Just the fact that this bore is pushing a third party, for no clear reasons that I can tell, is reason to wonder about it.
Americans Elect is an official party in Arizona. If someone files to run as a write-in candidate in the special election to fill Gabrielle Giffords’ congressional seat in AZ-08, it will create an actual Americans Elect primary in April, with just a blank space for a write-in vote. One write-in vote would be a plurality of those voting, and thus, according to Arizona election laws, that person would be the Americans Elect party nominee for Congress in the June special election. Of course the person running would have to be registered as a member of the Americans Elect Party in Arizona, but the AE primary would be open to those not affiliated with a party (independents, “no party preference,” whatever you call it).
What I’ve been wondering about all along is how Americans Elect can control down-ticket nominees in the general election in those states where voters can register as AEP members. It would be interesting to see people from the Occupy movement — or indeed, any group — try to hijack their ballot line.
I’m sure Richard Winger, with his vast knowledge of minor party history, can give examples of minor parties being used this way.
It would seem to me more sensible to have the presidential candidate first and then try to go the independent route or create a party like the Progressive, American Independent, or Reform party afterwards.
#8, that’s a very good reminder that Americans Elect in some states will probably have nominees for office other than president, whether party leaders like it or not. Other states in which Americans Elect will have a primary for all partisan office besides Arizona are Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin.
#6 HF: Although Roemer had said he would pursue the AE nomination, he doesn’t appear to be doing so very actively. I don’t see any kind of “Support Buddy on Americans Elect” banner on his web site as I would expect if he really wanted to pursue their nomination.
Richard: In states like Montana, two statewide offices would have to be contested before the state would issue a primary ballot for a political party. The libertarians in Montana could have a primary if say they had two people running for secretary of state for example or if two presidential candidates filed as libertarians. Otherwise candidates would just go straight to the general election. It does help to have a majority of the offices filled with candidates.
#7 A candidate may be elected with support from the 11 largest states. Of course with the electoral college a candidate may be elected with the support of the 40 smallest states as well (see the 1842 debate regarding district election of representatives).
The AE system is worse of course, since it requires the same level of support from any state. It is pretty unlikely that any candidate will garner support from 1000 Wyomingites. If you seek the AE nomination, I suggest that you focus on the large states.
12 –
Thanks for the explanation. I’m going to quote you when I complain to my local supermarket that their scales are “biased” toward heavier produce. We should be paying for potatoes and tomatoes by count, not by the pound.
Thanks again, Jimbo. You always see things so clearly.
Jim: The electoral college incorporates a bias in favor of smaller states, because the number of electoral votes each state has is not directly proportional to population.
California has 66 times the population of Wyoming, but only 18 times as many electoral votes.
Washington state has more than twice the population of Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota combined, but WA has 12 electoral votes, the same number as MT, WY, ND, and SD combined.
#14 A small one. The ability to aggregate electoral votes is more significant.
You couldn’t seriously argue that the AE system has a bias towards small states, by claiming that since a candidate could gather a 1000 supporters in states like Wyoming and Vermont that a candidate with little popular support could qualify.
15 –
Please read more carefully. My question to you, Jimbo, was not about AE, and 14’s comment was also about the EC, not AE.
God, you’re such an enormous tool.
#16 Let’s try to keep the discussion on a mature level. Let’s see if there are some things we agree upon.
(1) The original article was about the Support that Stephen Colbert and Buddy Roemer have.
(2) The Support level determines which candidates qualify for the actual nomination process, and includes a requirement that a candidate have 1000 supporters from each of 10 states.
(3) No candidate has close to 1000 supporters in even one state.
(4) It is quite likely that the 1000 supporters will be reached only in large states. A candidate could have broad support in many, many smaller states, and it won’t matter.
(5) This is a bias toward large states. It simply does not matter what Wyomingites think.
(6) I think it is ironic considering AE’s claim of an equal vote for every voter.
(7) A candidate either has 1000 supporters in a State or he doesn’t. It is binary. In the electoral college, a candidate either wins a State or doesn’t. It is binary.
(8) Both the AE system and the EC have a large state bias. The bias of the AE system is greater than that of the EC. In the EC, a candidate may be able to win the plurality of many smaller states. In the AE system, it may be impossible for any candidate to garner sufficient support from some small states.
(9) The bias of the two is somewhat similar, in that it is a large state bias.
17 –
Gosh Jim, my analogy was so elementary and yet you don’t understand it? Raising the maturity level to reach a common understanding may take us in the wrong direction.
You KNOW that my posts here are directed ONLY at your characterization of the EC as having a “large state bias.” They have nothing to do whatsoever with the AE (about which I have almost no interest, BTW) and yet your last post spends the first SEVEN points discussing the AE.
Also, for months and months you have posted in this space in opposition to the NPV interstate compact, and have supported your position in part on the basis that the NPV would weaken the bias which the founding fathers supposedly gave to the smaller states in creating the EC. That position has no basis in fact, of course, but it’s the one you’ve taken. So now we learn that the EC evidently provides concomitant biases to both large states and small states. Now that’s truly founding father “genius!”
Jim…I’m actually giving you credit. I credit you for intentionally employing obfuscatory and disingenuous polemic to advance your positions. You know…being an enormous Republican tool. But if you prefer, henceforth I’ll regard you instead as a full professor who, for some reason, cannot read and comprehend simple sentences written in English, and cannot follow a line of logic farther than the end of his nose.
Cheers.
#18 Would you point out an actual post that I have made where I have argued that the EC gives a small state bias, and that the NPV would weaken that bias? Susan Mvymvy, who like you is a proponent of the NPV scheme, has made such an argument. I have not.
Jim – you are a liar.
#20 Susan Mvymvy is not a proponent of the NPV scheme?
You are not a proponent of the NPV scheme?
Or Susan Mvymvy has not argued that the EC has a small state bias?