For the First Time Admitting Failure, AECorp Descends Into Bald-Faced Lies

From top: AECorp Chair Ackerman & CEO Byrd

Faced with one ballot failure after another, early this morning Americans Elect Corporation's Chief Evasion Officer, Kahlil Byrd, published the following statement on the AECorp web site, which we will dissect here:

"Over the past two years, Americans Elect has focused on achieving three clear goals:

• Gaining nationwide ballot access for a third presidential ticket to compete in the 2012 race; 
• Holding the first ever nonpartisan secure national online primary at AmericansElect.org; and
• Fielding a credible, balanced, unaffiliated ticket for the 2012 presidential race.

Through the efforts of thousands of staffers, volunteers, and leadership, Americans Elect has achieved every stated operational goal. Despite these efforts, as of today, no candidate has reached the national support threshold required to enter the “Americans Elect Online Convention” this June. (Read a detailed summary of the AE process here and the full rules here.)

Because of this, under the rules that AE delegates ratified, the primary process would end today. There is, however, an almost universal desire among delegates, leadership and millions of Americans who have supported AE to see a credible candidate emerge from this process.

Every step of the way, AE has conferred with its community before making major decisions. We will do the same this week before determining next steps for the immediate future. AE will announce the results of these conversations on Thursday, May 17.

As always, we thank everyone who has participated in this effort and will honor the work, efforts and trust so many people have placed in Americans Elect."

AECorp insiders have spent endless hours over the past few months sitting around the gem-encrusted teak board table in their penthouse bunker, wringing their hands and wailing in bewilderment, wondering why oh why the American electorate has failed to rise up and embrace AECorp as the Savior of Democracy.

Mr. Byrd...and that gentleman hiding behind the curtain over there, your shadowy Boss, Pete Ackerman...wonder no more. You need only read your own press release (above) to understand why Americans by the millions now either loath...or merely laugh at...Americans Elect. It is just this: you simply can't open your mouths without lying to the American public. We get that...and we are deeply offended by it.

Let's count off the lies in this one press release alone:

• "Americans Elect has achieved every stated operational goal" Umm...how about none of your goals? "Gaining nationwide ballot access"? Sorry, but no; you've gained ballot access in just 27 states. We realize that Wikipedia must sometimes be taken with a grain of salt, but in this case we agree with it that the U.S. is comprised of 50 states. "Holding the first ever nonpartisan secure national online primary at AmericansElect.org"? See, the thing is, that's why you had to issue this statement...because you have failed to hold your primary. "Fielding a credible, balanced, unaffiliated ticket"? Unless you're referring to a lottery ticket, we would have to disagree. You've failed at that. You have no ticket.
• "...under the rules that AE delegates ratified..." AECorp delegates have never been given an opportunity to "ratify" the rules, and this is one of the primary reasons why Americans reject AECorp as a fraud. Under AE's twisted perversion of democratic process (and we quote AECorp's never-ratified Bylaws, Section 8.3): "Where these Bylaws provide for ratification by the Delegates...the report of Committee shall be deemed adopted except by negative vote of a majority of all registered Delegates." In AECorp's twisted Bizzaro World, 'ratification' is a negative process: if a majority of delegates do nothing, an action of AE's Board or committees is deemed to be ratified. And because delegates are prevented from organizing or conferring among themselves...or even identifying each other...their inaction is guaranteed.
• "There is, however, an almost universal desire among delegates, leadership and millions of Americans who have supported AE to see a credible candidate emerge from this process" Space does not permit us to list here the literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of print, electronic, and broadcast publications which have howled in protest over AECorp's cynical buffoonery. If "millions of Americans" wished AE to succeed then AE's candidates would today have millions of support votes, instead of the few thousand they actually have, and AE would thus be launching its first primary ballot today.
• "Every step of the way, AE has conferred with its community before making major decisions" This lie may be the most egregious howler of them all. At precisely no point has AECorp ever "conferred" (in any meaningful sense of that word) with its "community" -- its delegates. AECorp has become notorious for iron-fisted (albeit ham-handed) top-down rule by decree, neither seeking nor enabling meaningful guidance from its delegates. Perhaps the "community" referred to here is the gated country club community where AECorp's secretive leaders live?
• "We will do the same this week" Really? How? Where is the mechanism for AE's delegate community to confer with leadership on this matter? It simply doesn't exist. You are simply lying. AECorp's shadowy puppetmasters may be conferring among themselves, hunkered in their D.C. penthouse bunker, but they are not conferring with the "community."

Five bald-faced lies in one short press release: this may be a world record, even in the dirty world of power-politics.

Whether they identify themselves as being on the Left, the Right, or the Center, one characteristic unites all Americans: they detest compulsive liars. And Americans Elect Corporation has what a gambler would call a 'tell': you can tell it's lying because its lips are moving. This, Misters Ackerman and Byrd, is why you have failed. And this is why you should resign, immediately.

Americans Elect can never succeed while it is run by incompetent compulsive liars. Americans Elect's Board of Directors and its executive officers must resign. Now.

ADDENDUM: At about 1 PM today AECorp asked on both its Facebook page and its outsourced GetSatisfaction customer service board "How do you think we should move forward? All ideas are welcome." Touched as we are by this effort to reach out to the delegates (too little, too late, but touching nonetheless), we should point out that the number of users signed up for AE's GetSatisfaction board (8,296) plus the number of people who have posted to AE's Facebook page (2,160) combined equal just 2.5% of AECorp's 423,000 members. An oddly narrow channel to employ, when AECorp has the email address of every member who has ever registered. Just more democracy theater, from the folks who invented it.