Americans Elects 2012 in CA.

This post is the results from an email update from Americans Elects 2012.

Kellen Arno, AE National Field Director, is currently leading an effort in the state of California. Kellen explained what’s involved.

What is the mission in California?
They are collecting signatures to reserve a place on the ballot for Americans Elect in November 2012, so that a ticket will be able to compete against the Democrats, Republicans and several other political parties in the state of California.

How exactly can Americans Elect get onto the ballot?
In California, there are two ways to do it. You can collect voter registration affidavits equal to 1% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election, which is roughly 100,000. The other method, which they are using, is to collect signatures on a petition. The signatures have to be equal to 10% of the total votes cast in the last gubernatorial election, or a little over 1 million.

Why choose the 1 million signature method?
One of the core beliefs of Americans Elect is welcoming Americans from all political parties and ideologies. Because they are not a traditional third party or political part of any sort, they don’t want to ask people to leave their parties. Instead, they believe that the more people who are able to participate in Americans Elect, from as diverse backgrounds as possible, ultimately makes our democracy and our country stronger.

They believe that collecting the signatures of over 1 million Californians reflects a powerful display of support for Americans Elect.

Who is collecting the signatures?
They have regional field managers in all major urban areas who are managing a team of over 800 signature-gatherers, also known as circulators. They do several trainings every day for anyone who is interested in gathering signatures. Many of the signature-gatherers are full-time professional circulators who have worked prior campaigns. A lot of them have some interest in politics. They also have a lot of people who are first-timers, who have never done this before – college students and college-aged people. A handful of circulators simply had heard of Americans Elect and this was the way they wanted to get involved.

I will keep everyone up-to-date as I get further updates.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
Technorati Tag in Del.icio.us