AUGUSTA — Americans Elect, which is attempting to get a third-party presidential candidate on the ballot in all 50 states, announced Thursday it will present 32,000 signatures to the Maine Bureau of Elections.

The well-funded national group sent paid signature-gatherers to Maine in October to create a place-holder on the ballot for a third-party candidate. The group, registered as a nonprofit, is attempting to ride a wave of public disenchantment with hyper-partisan politics in its effort to gather 2.9 million signatures nationwide.

The candidate has not been named. People will choose the bipartisan ticket during an online convention in June 2012.

The presidential nominee, the group says, must pick a running mate that’s either an independent or from the opposite party.

“Filing these signatures brings us one step closer to ballot access in Maine,” former gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler, an Americans Elect board member, said in a statement. “Mainers have signed this petition because they are ready for their voices to be heard. Americans Elect is providing the serious third choice they are looking for in the 2012 presidential election.”

Charlie Webster, chairman of the Maine Republican Party, said he didn’t consider the group a threat against the eventual GOP presidential nominee. Webster also rejected the group’s narrative that politics are more partisan now than in the past.

“I think if you look at history, there’s always been a split between the parties,” he said. “American politics have always been rough and tumble. They used to have duels over this stuff.”

However, Webster said a “polarizing” President Barack Obama and a Democratic party that he believes has tacked far left could make groups such as Americans Elect an appealing option for moderates who have abandoned Democrats.

Ben Grant, chairman of the Maine Democratic Party, rejected the notion that Americans Elect was a popular movement, saying the group was “indulging a bunch of secret millionaire populists in a misguided political science experiment.”

He noted that controversy surrounds Americans Elect because it refuses to disclose its funding sources.

“I’ve been searching my memory for the last ‘populist’ group that was funded by millions of dollars from secret donors, but nothing comes to mind,” Grant said in a statement.

He added, “In all seriousness, though, I applaud that more people might be participating in politics. However, it is just as important that we diagnose the problems we face correctly. When it is all said and done, I expect Americans Elect will just be remembered as another political fad that couldn’t survive in the world of reality-based politics.”

The group is deploying methods that are gaining popularity — and controversy — following recent court decisions on campaign finance laws.

The group’s 501(c)(4) nonprofit status protects the identity of its funding sources — an issue that has already raised alarms from outside watchdog groups.

Democracy 21, a campaign finance watchdog, recently accused several nonprofits of abusing tax laws to run “shadow campaign organizations.” Americans Elect was included in the complaint, along with Republican operative Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS and Priorities USA, a group run by two former Obama White House aides.

Democracy 21 says those groups are political organizations that are using lax IRS enforcement to exploit nonprofits’ ability to shield donors from the public. Democracy 21 also challenged Americans Elect’s nonprofit status with the Internal Revenue Service, saying the organization was a political organization designed to elect and defeat candidates — tasks it’s not permitted to do.

Nonetheless, tax documents the group filed prior to obtaining nonprofit status provide a snapshot of Americans Elect’s financial backing, which the group says has exceeded $20 million.

Elliot Ackerman told the Sun Journal in October that more than 3,000 individuals have contributed to the organization.

One of them is Ackerman’s father, Peter Ackerman, a private investment executive who reportedly made millions of dollars selling junk bonds in the 1980s. According to tax documents, Peter Ackerman has given at least $1.55 million to Americans Elect.

Elliot Ackerman declined to disclose other donors, saying it was up to them to publicize their involvement.

“Ultimately, there’s a lot of folks out there who are afraid of retribution from the two major parties,” said Elliot Ackerman, adding that some donors “do major business with the government.”

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