In addition to not existing on any level in the public consciousness, for the very very few that have heard of them, they had an extremely weak call to action. I signed up, did the questionnaire, got an email to a questionnaire, and after that, the next four out of five emails I received were solicitations for donations. The only exception was an email that did not have a clear call to action. They never listed the steps in the process and asked me to do anything to meet a specific goal. When I read that blurb above, I sort of thought "huh? I never knew I could click to vote already, or that the voting was closed" Maybe it's my fault for not spending more than the 35 minutes I spent taking their on line questionnaire. Maybe I should have dug in and researched more to find out what exactly I needed to do....but I didn't. When you're asking the population to vote in a new way that they are not used to doing, I think that educating them is paramount, and needs to be done effectively or you are wasting your time. The average voter is not an activist, and I feel like that's what Americans Elect was asking people to a large extent. Not exactly a formula for success.
If each candidate just had a one-page statement, and then you could choose him/her, it would have been much better.
1. Sign up 2. Get introductory email that guides you to their site 3. First thing you see is the questionnaire that asks you what you are looking policy and belief wise. 4. Do questionnaire for over half hour and answer (no joke) over two hundred questions before I feel like some of them are repeating and I have no idea how long this is going to take. 5. Close browser wondering if I had 5 or 500 questions left to go. 6. Get email asking for money 7. Get email asking for money 8. Get email asking for money 9. Get email about something having to do with a party somewhere and spreading the word 10. Get email asking for money 11. See link on Hubski that Americans Elect failed (hmm, no email on that though)