Online Presidential Primary

There is a new movement afoot that seeks to elect a “nonpartisan” president of the United States next November by making effective use of the new communications tools of the digital era.

The movement is called Americans Elect, and it will soon hold the first-ever national primary online to select its presidential candidate.

Americans Elect has attracted interest from politically oriented people on both the left and the right who feel that the current election campaign system has been corrupted by money and a seriously flawed campaign finance law.

The group says it is “already well on the way to putting the first directly-nominated nonpartisan ticket on the 2012 ballot in all 50 states.”

Americans Elect will hold its national convention online on June 12.

The movement seeks to distinguish itself from traditional third-party efforts:

Americans Elect is a "2nd way" to nominate a President, not a traditional 3rd party. Our process is open to any qualified candidate and any registered voter—no matter their party. We have no ties to any political group—left, right, or center. We don't promote any issues, ideology or candidates. None of our funding comes from special interests or lobbyists. Our only goal is to put a directly-nominated ticket on the ballot in 2012.

One of Americans Elect’s supporters is Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law professor and author of Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It. Lessig, who describes himself as left-leaning, promotes the movement in this week in an article on the website of The Atlantic magazine. He sees Americans Elect as the “last, best chance” of halting the slide into corruption brought on by the defective campaign finance system:

For those of us who believe that the corruption of this government is the issue these candidates must address, Americans Elect could be an important opportunity: 10,000 clicks from 10 states could begin a candidate in the process towards winning the AE nomination. If a number of serious candidates vie for that nomination, it could get the attention of a politics-starved media necessary to excite the imagination of at least 15 percent of the public. And if it does that, then there is a straight path to getting what we most need now: The attention to this critical issue that solving it will depend upon.This argument is not accepted easily by many. First is the fear that a strong independent would cheat either Obama or Romney of his victory. And second, among any mixture of sane and (small c) conservative souls, there are plenty of questions about Americans Elect, and whether any of us should trust it.These are fair and serious concerns, and I would respect anyone who wrestled with them and resolved them differently from how I do. But as I have reckoned them, I have come to believe that we should do what we can to make this chance real. For the risk to this democracy of letting this issue slide is profound and urgent. 

So far, the leading declared candidates on the Americans Elect website are Buddy Roemer, Rocky Anderson and Laurence Kotlikoff. Roemer is a former congressman and governor from Louisiana. Anderson is a former mayor of Salt Lake City. Kotlikoff is an economics professor at Boston University and the first economist, as far as he knows, to run for president of the United States. The Americans Elect candidate that emerges from the online caucus and convention process could be someone else entirely.

There are a number of sharp political minds involved in the Americans Elect movement. It will be interesting to see how far it gets.