‘Americans Elect’ Seeks Ballot Consideration

It's not a political party, does not have a candidate selected, and yet it's an organization that wants to have a place on the ballot for a presidential candidate in every state. It's Americans Elect:

"We are not a political party; we are actually a second way to nominate a president. And so, you can be a registered Republican; you can be a registered Democrat. You don't have to give that up, but what you can also do is you can come to Americans Elect, and all we've done is build this platform, this website and this nominating process, where the American people determine the best candidate to lead the American people."

Kellen Arno, the national field director for Americans Elect, says the established party gridlock and the first-past-the-poll election process demonstrates the system isn't working.

Partisan gridlock:

"This idea that we could somehow be a spoiler, we're not going to be coming from the far right or the far left and taking only votes away from one party. The political marketplace is a marketplace just like any other. And Americans Elect, we will go out, we will get 50-state ballot access, and we'll put forth a credible candidate. I have faith in the American people that they'll vote accordingly and the political marketplace will be okay.

Americans Elect will start gathering signatures in Wyoming this week. They need 3,813. They hope to collect 8,000. The presidential candidate hasn't yet been determined, so the idea is to make sure there's place on the ballot for an alternative.

Ballot for whomever emerges:

"Please visit us at americanselect.org and you can sign up to become a delegate and begin the process of telling us what are the issues that matter to you, and move on down to helps us shape the debate, to see what kind of candidates we want to see competing against Republicans and Democrats in all 50 states."

The website again is www.americanselect.org.