Americans Elect's quest for a third-party moderate to challenge Obama and whoever the Republicans settled on has hit a PR snafu of its own making. Digging through the organization's website, BuzzFeed reports that from now on any money donated to Americans Elect will be going to repay its early millionaire backers first, due to an under-the-radar change in bylaws. "The Board of Directors voted unanimously on 20 February 2012 to ensure that no supporter would cover more than 20 percent of the Americans Elect budget," Americans Elect announced this month. "In the event that any one supporter exceeds that percentage, there are provisions created to expedite repayments to that supporter." Americans Elect, for those who don't religiously read Tom Friedman, is a non-partisan political group trying to hold an online primary to get a third-party presidential candidate on the ballot in 2012 -- someone like Olympia Snowe or Buddy Roemer. 

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at dgrandoni at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.