Americans Elect Named SXSW Award Finalist

Americans Elect has been selected as a 2012 Interactive Awards Finalist in the Experimental Category at South by Southwest (SXSW), the annual music, film, and interactive conference and festival held in Austin, Texas. AE was recognized as an organization on the cutting edge of political reform and technology–changing the way we nominate the president of the United States.

Americans Elect was choosen to participate in a panel session at SXSW on Sunday, March 11. Both CEO, Kahlil Byrd and Chief Technology Officer, Joshua Levine will be presenting on the panel titled, “Isn’t it time for an Online Presidential Primary?”

Click here to access the complete press release.

Click here to view the award winning website.

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Here’s the history of SXSW…

The first South by Southwest Music Conference and Festival (SXSW) was held in 1987 in Austin, Texas. Despite the fact that Austin was not a Top 20 major market at the time, the background and character of the city made it a perfect location for the conference. Austin was considered a fairly cosmopolitan town for its size because of the University of Texas, which draws people from all over the world. As home to the state government and Texas Legislature it has also always been a popular party town, with a reputation that goes back to the 19th century when numerous nightspots and bars were populated by General Custer’s troops after the Civil War. These nightspots are located in the same areas where the 6th Street and 4th Street club and bar scenes now exist.

Austin’s eclectic music scene goes back to early in the city’s history (from Mexican, German and colonial origins) and encompasses a wide variety of music including country, folk, jazz, blues and rock. Central Austin boasts more original music nightclubs in a concentrated area than any other city in the world.

The classic problem facing Austin musicians was being isolated from the rest of the world here in the middle of Texas. SXSW was a way to reach out to the rest of the world, and bring them here to do business. To do that successfully, SXSW needed to appeal to people other than local artists whether they were from Austin, Ft. Worth, Chicago, Toronto, Munich or Tokyo.

National interest in SXSW was immediate. For years, music businesses on both coasts had been intrigued by what was going on in Austin. The cosmic cowboy, blues, punk and other scenes had already proven that Austin was a receptive place for bands to be creative. With SXSW, music industry executives gained a good excuse to visit.

International interest in SXSW began the second year due to many Austin and American bands finding their first success in Europe. Conversely, there was a lot of interest from SXSW registrants in the international bands who came to perform. SXSW now has offices in Ireland, Germany, Australia and Japan who help bring SXSW registrants to Austin.

The music event has grown from 700 registrants in 1987 to over 16,000 registrants. As Austin has grown and diversified, film companies and high-tech companies have played a major role in the Austin and the Texas economies. In 1994, SXSW added a film and interactive component to accommodate these growth industries. SXSW Film and SXSW Interactive events together attract approximately 32,000 registrants to Austin every March.

SXSW’s original goal was to create an event that would act as a tool for creative people and the companies they work with to develop their careers, to bring together people from a wide area to meet and share ideas. That continues to be the goal today whether it is music, film or the internet. And Austin continues to be the perfect location.

Click here to access more information on the SXSW website.

Click here to access information on the SXSW website titled “Isn’t It Time for an Online Presidential Primary?”

Americans Elect is using the Internet and its Social Networking in an attempt to create exponential political change. Here’s a look at their timeline -

July 2011 in a New York Times op-ed piece Thomas Friedman said “Write it down: Americans Elect. What Amazon.com did to books, what the blogosphere did to newspapers, what the iPod did to music, what drugstore.com did to pharmacies, Americans Elect plans to do to the two-party duopoly that has dominated American political life — remove the barriers to real competition, flatten the incumbents and let the people in. Watch out.”

September 2011 Thomas Friedman and Micheal Mandlebaum’s book That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back is released. It contains a recommendation for the creation of a 3rd political party.

Also in 2011 the phased implementaion of their website begins. Click here to view it. Note the icons in the upper right hand corner of their home page. The phased implementation is progressing from left to right through the Learn, Colors, Debates, Candidates and Voting icons.

Also in 2011 they created a YouTube Channel. Click here to see at it.

December 2011 Buddy Roemer, the former Congressman and Governor of Louisiana, became the first Americans Elect declared candidate. Click here to read about Buddy Roemer.

December 2011 Donald Trump tweeted and hinted about his interest in Americans Elect. Click here to read an article about Donald.

January 2012 Laurence Kotlikoff has declared “My goal is to become the candidate for President of the United States of the Americans Elect party.” Click here to access his website which contains his qualifications, positions, etc.

January 17, 2012 Click here for an update on state by state ballot access.

Now CLICK HERE to join the Americans Elect process and put yourself in the position of being able to vote in their online primary.