Don’t be afraid of the real freedom of speech and freedom from tyranny here.
Here’s how it’s legal.
Note: The analysis below assumes the courts will uphold our God-given First Amendment rights. If not, it’s game over. Real free speech is extremely vulnerable to tyranny. That’s why we have the Second Amendment.
Please don’t be afraid of the freedom from tyranny and real freedom of speech that I am writing about here. I am going to tell you right now why it’s legal.
First of all, I am a former certified public accountant who learned his trade at Arthur Andersen & Co., which at the time was one of the most prestigious firms in the world. Designing transactions that minimize the impact of regulations in a way that doesn’t land anybody in jail has been my career for many years.
If you remember from the last letter, PowerVote uses a fund that is free from campaign finance laws. This freedom means you can join with your allies and intimidate lawmakers into supporting the legislation you want. This costs you little more than transaction costs because you can use the fund the way a cowboy uses a whip, enough money to cause the defeat of just one lawmaker of average electoral strength could be used to drive the majority into doing what you want. Your only gift to lawmakers is that you DON’T make a campaign contribution to their opponent. You do this without making them the proverbial offer they can’t refuse because you aren’t offering anybody anything, a little more on that in a minute.
First let’s address campaign finance laws. As you may know, there are Political Action Committee (PAC) laws that prevent the natural extension of real freedom of speech as described above from occurring. For example, at the federal level, the limit is $5,000. The limits can be much smaller at the state level. In Maine, the limit is just $400. Even at the municipal level, these laws regulate your voice. At these limits, your cause simply is not free enough to become a threat to the jobs of elected officials, which is essential for self government. One fairly lame way of getting around these laws are super-PACS, but this is not very efficient or effective in comparison to PowerVote. Voters need to know who they’re voting for. To really know the candidate as well as they know the incumbent, voters need to hear directly from the candidate. The “dark money” of super-PACS just can’t do this.
In a nutshell, the reason the PowerVote fund is free from these PAC laws is that under no circumstances, as in zero, are the deposits EVER donated to a political campaign. The deposit totals reported by PowerVote are just a public indicator of the threat level to lawmakers, the deposits themselves are not the threat. What lawmakers need to fear is what is done with deposits after they have been refunded to their owners and are thus, no longer deposits with PowerVote.
The problem for lawmakers is that while the depositors are holding their refund checks or whatever, they are being informed of the refund by what is essentially a fundraising letter. This is not your normal fundraising letter. It is customized to the depositor’s previously stated demand. Not only that, but it can be essentially a plea from the person the depositor said they would most trust to advise them on their demand. Keep in mind, the depositor has lived without the money on deposit solely for the purpose of their demand. Now with money in hand, they’re hearing from their trusted leader the name of the lawmaker who is responsible for their voice being ignored. If they want to teach lawmakers not to ignore them, they can forward this refund to the campaign of the lawmaker’s strongest opponent. Oh and by the way, here’s the address. Of course, whether PowerVote subscribers do what they’re asked is entirely up to them. This absolute total control of theirs should result in contributions being charged against the individual’s accounts and not PowerVote’s by the regulators. This absolute control also assures that PowerVote leaders do not become political powers independent of their followers the way it can occur in a traditional PAC. Of course, depositors are still subject to the individual limits.
The reason that this fundraising letter is also exempt from campaign finance laws is that it is a subscription publication. In other words, the depositor pays for it in advance or it’s paid for by advertising. In today’s world of electronic and almost free communication, the price is low. As with any new subscriptions, the first subscription is usually on a free trial basis. Advertisers are found as the audience builds. Yes, you may know advocates of tyranny who think any news or commentary is an “in-kind” contribution even though this exemption is statutory, but if the courts allow this nonsense, it’s game over for the First Amendment and the American dream anyway.
As for the bribery laws, the PowerVote subscriber is making no promise or offer, express or implied. PowerVote subscribers are simply showing potential allies, foes and lawmakers what a demand for legislation is worth while at the same time showing that they will have the information that they need to convert this money into the most powerful political communication possible, including direct campaign contributions. Their chosen leader is just making public on the PowerVote web page via a simple interview what advice is planned under various scenarios: Maybe there isn’t enough financial support for the cause to justify any action, maybe there’s enough support that lawmaker target #1 should support your cause and if he doesn’t your leader will recommend his defeat, if he supports your demand then lawmaker #2 is the target, etc. Knowing the amount of financial support behind a cause is absolutely crucial in deciding how money should be spent or whether it should be spend at all. Making public the future intentions of a leader can attract support and empowers the followers. Say “goodbye” to lobbying and back room deals. In a world where all politics is a function of communication, and all communication requires an expenditure of resources, this is political speech and press second to none in importance to a free country.
So what do the regulators say about PowerVote? Even though this publisher believes that any publisher who makes the free call to the FEC, state equivalents or hires an attorney to ask permission to publish is in the wrong business, PowerVote has been tested. Years ago the President Pro Tempore of the Vermont Senate (Majority Leader) complained to the Secretary of State, the regulator of campaign finance law at the time, about PowerVote. This complaint was almost immediately reported on the front pages of some of the state’s largest newspapers (funny how that works). In those articles the Secretary of State reported that he did not believe PowerVote was currently violating any campaign finance laws.
Finally, lets not forget the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is true that the only way you can currently be free of tyranny is to own the PowerVote cryto currency token, which is similar to Bitcoin. Despite all the scams, thefts and bad press in the crypto space, there remain a couple solid truths without exception: crypto coins cannot be counterfeited and the supply is strictly controlled by the blochchain. It’s basic economics then that if PowerVote turns out to be the most powerful way to speak out on a political issue and the how and why PowerVote works seems beyond the comprehension of mortal men (not us of course), the value of the coin could skyrocket, maybe a thousand fold, maybe even more. What goes up can come down or might not go up at all. For example, if the courts refuse to stand up for PowerVote’s First Amendment rights, the token would most likely be worthless. Just as frosting on the cake, Jay Clayton, Chairman of the SEC, once said that he has never seen a crypto currency that wasn’t a security. If PowerVote triggers SEC registration, that means that the only Americans who could free their voices from tyranny would be the very rich who could qualify for the SEC’s rigid “qualified investor” requirements. Of course, this outcome would be downright un-American. This means how the PowerVotes are sold must be done very carefully. The good news is PowerVote is not a proposed idea. PowerVote exists today, is fully functioning at www.powervote.io and is freeing Americans from tyranny as you read this. The only reason you haven’t heard about it in the news media is that it has not had its “Hiroshima” moment yet when it proves what its subscribers can do to lawmakers’ political careers.
To learn for yourself how PowerVotes are sold, just call 734–846–5680 or email jim@powervote.io.
Thank You!
James A. Todaro, PowerVote Publisher & Founder
P.S. If you connect the dots, you know that what you’ve read means you will likely never have the opportunity to get more PowerVotes for the money than now. “To the victor goes the spoils” has been crucial political speech for both good guys and bad since Adam and Eve when the Devil proposed attacking God’s tree. Sorry Jay.
