1. Facebook Fan: someone who “likes” Americans Elect on Facebook. As of this morning, 466,625 people have “liked” Americans Elect on Facebook.

2. Account holder: someone who signed up for an account at americanselect.com. Americans Elect has never revealed how many people hold an account at americanselect.com.

3. Delegate: According to the official Americans Elect bylaws, delegates are not mere Facebook fans or account holders. Delegates are people who have signed up for accounts, and then “have submitted sufficient information to permit verification of their lawful status as registered voters and citizens of the United States, and who have been so verified by Americans Elect, and who have accepted the Delegate Pledge as provided by the Rules Committee.”

On February 2 2012, under the signature of Americans Elect National Press Secretary Ileana Wachtel, Americans Elect issued a press release declaring that “The candidate page enables Americans Elect delegates – now numbering more than 360,000 – to bypass the two-party primary process, identify and draft candidates who share their concerns, and have their voices heard regardless of where they live.”

On March 28 2012, again under the signature of Americans Elect National Press Secretary Ileana Wachtel, Americans Elect issued another press release declaring that “To date, there have been over 2.9 million visitors to the site, 19 million questions answered, over 400,000 delegates and over 460,000 Facebook fans.” (This count indicates that over the past two months, Americans Elect’s Facebook fanbase has been stagnant.)

On March 29 2012, again under the signature of Americans Elect National Press Secretary Ileana Wachtel, Americans Elect issued another press release declaring that “Americans Elect is inviting every registered voter to sign up at AmericansElect.org to join over 400,000 delegates to choose the ticket that will serve as a serious alternative to the two major parties and be on the ballot nationwide this November.”

On April 17 2012, again under the signature of Americans Elect National Press Secretary Ileana Wachtel, Americans Elect issued another press release declaring that “To date, there have been 3 million visitors to the site, 19 million questions answered, over 400,000 delegates have signed up and there are over 460,000 Facebook fans.” (This count indicates that approximately 100,000 people visited the website americanselect.com in a one month period. For purposes of comparison, this only modestly-popular website had 82,231 unique visitors in the month of March.)

In March, John Lumea carefully showed how these claims by Americans Elect could not possibly be true.

Now Will Evans of California Watch has caught Wachtel acknowledging that Americans Elect’s prior claims are not true:

Even Americans Elect die-hards had their share of gripes. One of the main complaints was that prospective voters had a hard time registering as delegates through the website.

Risley said the Americans Elect model gave her “hope for the first time in a long time.” But as she held campaign gatherings at her home and reached out to like-minded activists at Occupy protests, she became frustrated with the group’s online system. Some supporters couldn’t get through the site’s intensive verification of whether they were registered voters or didn’t want to provide the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, she said.

“Why make it so hard for people?” Risley said.

Ileana Wachtel, Americans Elect’s press secretary, said only 300 out of tens of thousands of people had problems with the website that couldn’t be resolved, mostly because of inaccurate voter registration data.

“When dealing with voters most precious franchise, the vote, there cannot be any compromise on the issue of security,” she said in an e-mail.

Only 300 out of “tens of thousands” had trouble registering as delegates? Tens of thousands? Counting generously, that means less than a hundred thousand people registered as delegates. If less than a hundred thousand people registered as delegates, that means Americans Elect inflated its delegate count in publicity materials by at least 400% — and most likely by more.

Why does this matter?

It matters because Americans Elect wanted to be the first corporation in the history of America to run its own privatized online presidential nomination — and it wanted to count the votes. Americans Elect has just shown it can’t be trusted to produce an accurate count.

It matters because Americans Elect may have failed in the 2012 elections, but you can bet that it will come back, just like it changed its name from Unity08 and came back after its even bigger failure in the 2008 cycle. Americans Elect will tell people that it’s the solution to a corrupt political system. With its delegate count lie, situated among dozens of other incidents, Americans Elect has shown that it is not the solution.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that Americans Elect’s letter — even after its failure to draw significant support from the American people — represents another delay of disclosure.

Six days ago, I filed a formal request for IRS Form 990 from Americans Elect, four days after the form was due. Americans Elect is required to supply this document to any citizen, and it matters, because it provides information about Americans Elect’s finances that Americans Elect hasn’t provided voluntarily. But Americans Elect has played the same card it played last year, filing for a delay of 3 months on the disclosure of its Form 990.

May 25, 2012

VIA EMAIL: retorts@irregulartimes.com

Jim Cook
52 Conway Road
Camden, ME 04843

Re: Americans Elect

Dear Mr. Cook:
Thank you for your recent inquiry. Americans Elect has not yet filed its 2011 Form 990 with the Internal Revenue Service. Americans Elect has filed Form 8868 with the Internal Revenue Service and therefore has received an automatic 3 month extension for the deadline to file its 2011 Form 990.

In three months — that’s August 15, 2012 — Americans Elect’s 3 month extension for filing Form 990 will expire. I’ll be sending another letter to Americans Elect at that time, and we’ll see what Americans Elect is willing — or unwilling — to share.

Amid the multiple nationwide media mentions of the David Walker draft campaign supporting Walker’s platform of social security and health care cuts, was there ever any real grassroots “Walker Fever” spreading anywhere? One indication is the number of people who voted to support Walker’s presidential candidacy: out of 313 million Americans, only 692 people.

Another indication of actual “Walker Fever” would be a large number financial contributions from all sorts of Americans. The public won’t gain any direct information about the contributors to the draft Walker committee until July, the next disclosure deadline mandated by the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Watch this space for disclosures.

But independent expenditure data already indicate that the Walker “fever” may have been no more than a beltway media illusion. In its official registration as an “Independent Expenditure-Only Committee” on April 24 2012, the Committee to Get Walker Running informed the FEC that:

This committee intends to make unlimited independent expenditures and consistent with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit decision in SpeechNow v. FEC, it therefore intends to raise funds in unlimited amounts.

But if the Committee spent any funds, they must have been in very limited amounts indeed. According to the FEC, once the Committee’s expenditures topped $10,000, reports of any expenditures must be made to the FEC by midnight on the day after the expenditure has been made.

I invite you to search through Independent Expenditure reports between the dates of April 1 2012 and May 25 2012 (that’s today). You’ll find no indication whatsoever of any expenditure made by the Committee to Get Walker Running, or by any other independent expenditure committee with “Walker” in its name for that matter.

The only symptom of “fever” apparent here is hallucination.

If Mr. King truly believes in disclosure, then he needs to let us know: What is his relationship with ICPurple, and what is the source of the money that’s paid for ICPurple advertisements to benefit his campaign?

Angus King’s campaign has been the beneficiary of video advertisements paid for by ICPurple, an organization dedicated to promoting a “centrist” ideology by electing candidates not affiliated with any political party to Congress. Nowhere on the ICPurple web site are Mr. King’s values of disclosure and transparency promoted. It’s no wonder: ICPurple isn’t very transparent itself. Nowhere on the ICPurple web site is the source of the organization’s money identified.

All of ICPurple’s money appears to come from just one man: Billionaire Ted Waitt, retired corporate executive, the founder of Gateway, a computer manufacturer. ICPurple describes itself as “an ever-growing movement of American voters”, but really, it looks like it’s just another front group created by a wealthy member of the 1 Percent who wants to purchase influence for his personal agenda in Congress.

Is Angus King really disgusted with the system of billionaires using Super PACs to buy control over the political system? If that’s the case, then Mr. King should repudiate ICPurple and the money from Ted Waitt that is being used to promote the King for Senate campaign.

The facts are that Democratic Mayor of Newark Cory Booker, former Democratic Representative Harold Ford of Tennessee, and former Obama business advisor Steven Rattner criticized Barack Obama for his advertisement, calling it inappropriate to shame capital investment firms. But these are not all the facts, as only one out of three news outlets reveals.

In its coverage of this kerfuffle, ABC News refers simply to a “divide among Democrats over the portrayal of Romney’s Bain days.” Veering more firmly into blatant inaccuracy, FOX News refers to Obama’s detractors as “rank and file.” But Brayden Simms of Metro News nails the pattern down tight when he considers why some prominent Democrats so harshly criticized Barack Obama recently. Simms writes:

Ford is currently a managing director for Morgan Stanley. Rattner co-founded a private equity firm and worked for Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and others. Booker is a sitting politician whose job is directly linked to the financial sector: Bain and other similar firms contributed hundreds of thousands to his last election.

Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and Bain Capital — all firms to which Cory Booker, Harold Ford and Steven Rattner are in thrall — have the common feature of gutting American industries, kicking Americans out of work and subjecting American workers’ hard-earned pensions to jeopardy. Booker, Ford and Rattner are springing to their corporate masters’ defense. Big Finance Democrats like Booker, Rattner and Ford are more than willing to throw Barack Obama under the bus because their allegiance to money is stronger than their allegiance to a candidate.

In explaining why he thought finance capitalism should be above criticism by mere plebes, Rattner revealed his value system:

Bain Capital’s responsibility was not to create 100,000 jobs or some other number. It was to create profits for its investors. It did it superbly well.

Rattner got this one thing right: megafinance corporations are not “job creators” after all. They’re wealth extractors and concentrators on behalf of their already wealthy investors. If you think that kind of behavior should be above question and purged from discussion, then by all means stand with Mitt Romney on the Republican side and with his allies in the “centrist” faction of the Democratic Party. Otherwise, isn’t it time to walk away?

The problem is that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional. Federal courts have ruled DOMA unconstitutional. It’s unconstitutional on more than one count.

1. Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution mandates that “Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.” But under DOMA, this clause is directly contradicted, declaring that “No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State…”. This gives same-sex marriages and different-sex marriages are given separate and unequal status. The marriages of different-sex couples must be recognized at the federal level in all 50 states, no matter in what state they were married. The marriages of same-sex couples are denied that recognition. That brings us to…

2. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution has an equal protection clause making it unconstitutional for any state to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Under DOMA, Indiana is required to acknowledge the marriage of straight couples in Massachusetts, but is allowed to reject the validity the marriage of same-sex couples in Massachusetts. That is unequal protection under law. I’m not just saying that. Federal Judge Jeffrey White made that ruling in February of this year.

People talk about how much Ron Paul loves the Constitution and supports the Constitution and defends the Constitution. But in supporting the Defense of Marriage Act over and over again, in forbidding the Justice Department to take a stance against the Act, Ron Paul subverts the very same Constitution that he frequently waves in the air and claims to value so deeply.

Mr. Constitution, my foot.

These long periods of vacation for the lower house of Congress, when ordinary Americans are working, are justified as an opportunity for U.S. representatives to go back home from Washington D.C. and meet with constituents in their home district. Mostly, however, these free days are used by members of Congress to go meet with corporate lobbyists and political action committees, begging for money and offering legislative favors.

That’s what Congressman Paul Ryan will be doing this morning. Five hours from now, Ryan will attend a fundraising breakfast in San Francisco at the headquarters of Gap, Inc. Gap, Inc. is a company that specializes in making profits by taking jobs that could be held by American workers and sending those jobs to sweatshop factories in foreign countries. Paul Ryan happens to promote a legislative agenda that keeps the door open to corporations that set up shop overseas instead of creating jobs in the USA.

So, it’s a very tight relationship between Paul Ryan and the executives at Gap corporate headquarters, which is why the company is helping Ryan meet with lobbyists and take their money this morning. The advertised price for the privilege of sitting at Congressman Ryan’s table and having a nice leisurely legislative conversation with him is $5,000.

Do you have enough money to attend that breakfast?

When that “faith” gets put into action, however, it quickly loses its veneer of sincere religious conviction.

Consider the recent independent expenditure made by the Faith and Freedom Action Super PAC, on behalf of Richard Mourdock. The political action committee announced today that it has spent thousands of dollars on “robo calls” made by the political mercenaries at Conqueet Communications. These obocalls are automatic telephone calls made by a computer, blasting pre-recorded political messages to people who did not request them, giving the recipients no opportunity to speak in return.

What kind of faith needs to rely on robocalls? What is the religious idea behind this literal political machine?

If these supporters of Richard Mourdock genuinely believed in a divine purpose behind the Mourdock for Senate campaign, wouldn’t they rest assured of the campaign’s victory? Do they really believe that their god’s political plans for the U.S. Senate seat from Indiana depends on computer programs that make automatic telephone calls to interrupt voters’ family dinners?

It’s worth noting that the Faith and Freedom Action Super PAC is not even based in Indiana. The shadowy organization is based out of a post office box all the way down in Duluth, Georgia. What’s up with that? I suppose that Super PACs operate in mysterious ways.

Could it go in a more liberal direction?

Right now, there are no Senate candidates in Maine running on a Green Party line, but there are four Democratic candidates declared for the seat.

There’s Benjamin Pollard, an environmental activist. That’s cool, but he writes in the first substantive lines of his Issues page that, “The partisan divisions in our Congress and in our nation have become so severe that our national security is now more at risk than at any time since the end of the Cold War.” Is our national security now more at risk than at any time since 1989? I’m not seeing it. This kind of thinking can lead in great leaps and bounds to a vote in favor of war. It was bipartisan fervor, not partisan divisions, that got us into the quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Matt Dunlap doesn’t even bring up foreign policy on his issues page. His ideas about environmental policy are also missing. He seems roughly progressive on economic issues, but voters need to know more. It’s not just the economy, stupid.

Cynthia Dill doesn’t include environmental issues on her issues page, but she uses a very encouraging phrase when discussing foreign policy: “We must begin to beat swords into ploughshares…” She also is on the record as having voted in favor of marriage equality.

Then there’s Jon Hinck. Hinck doesn’t have an issues page yet, but he does remind us that he was a co-founder of Greenpeace USA. That’s intriguing, but what would you do in the U.S. Senate? Co-found a Greenpeace caucus?

It’s just a few weeks until the Democratic primary election, and still, these candidates all need to bring the voters more information.

No Labels, May 19 2012: “Listen up #Washington: Stop fighting. Start fixing! Plz RT if you agree.”

And yes, in case you were wondering: No Labels’ headquarters is in Washington, DC.