Take A Byte Out of Plutocracy: Withdraw Your Support Clicks (Here's How)

If you're like us, when you first learned about Americans Elect you were excited. "At last," you thought, "somebody gets it!" Online voting holds tremendous promise to engage voters and to enhance democracy. And a third party with no partisan baggage, and with 50-state ballot access, could really kick some politics-as-usual butt inside the Beltway.

So you went online. You signed up as an Americans Elect member. You ran the gauntlet of questions about your nephew's high school mascot in order to get your identity verified. And you voted for your favorite candidates.

And then...too late...you realized that you'd been chumped.

You learned about the rogues' gallery of distasteful characters who silently run Americans Elect Corporation with an iron fist. You discovered, with a sinking feeling, that your vote means nothing because Americans Elect's owner/operator, Pete Ackerman, reserves the power to solely determine the outcome of the convention, and even has plans to throw the November election to another party -- maybe the conventional party you most oppose. You found yourself completely alienated by AECorp's finessed 'Platform of Questions', which bear little or no relationship to the issues which matter most to you. You learned that AECorp has been fiddling with the ballot to stack the deck in favor of its favorite candidate of the week. And you learned that both major and minor AECorp candidates alike just wink at all of this, seduced into sleeping with the devil by the irresistible temptation of 'free' 50-state ballot access.

And boy, did you feel like a sucker. We know; we've been there, too.

You could just walk away and try to forget all about this violation of your person...you could just be another silent victim. But your mother raised you better than that. You know you're supposed to clean up your own mess.

So instead of just pretending you've never heard of Americans Elect, why not do the right thing -- why not take back your candidate support votes? If your right to vote is important to you -- as it should be -- then why cast it before swine? If Americans Elect isn't going to treat your vote with the respect it deserves then take it back from them. You'll feel better for it, and America will, too.

Maybe you're thinking "but I still really like my favorite candidate -- why should I punish her for Peter Ackerman's sins?" Here's how we see it. Our favorite candidate is not going to win the AECorp derby if he isn't also Pete Ackerman's Chosen One. That much, we think, is a given -- and so is this: in the unlikely event that our favorite candidate actually is Pete's Chosen One, then she's going to win whether anyone votes for her or not. So, just as we're not helping our candidate by voting for him, we're not hurting him by taking back our vote, either. What we are doing by taking back our vote is defending our self-respect, and honoring the sacrifices of America's Founding Fathers and generations of warriors who fought and died for our right to vote in free and fair elections. That seems pretty damn important to us.

If you feel the same way, here follows a brief tutorial on how to withdraw your support votes at Americans Elect Corporation.

Step 1: Log into your account at Americans Elect

Step 2: Go to the page of each candidate you have supported

Step 3: Mouse over the "I'm Supporting" button; it turns red

Step 4: Click it!

(It may take a minute for a page refresh to reveal that your vote has actually been subtracted)

Congratulations! You've set your soul free, you've helped us take a byte out of plutocracy, you've sent a powerful message to the oligarchs behind Americans Elect that you aren't a dope and you won't play their cheesy con game, and you've defended democracy. Not bad for one minute's work!