White House petitions will now require 100,000 signatures before response

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

White House petitions will now require 100,000 signatures before response

Amanda Holpuch
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 January 2013 16.24 GMT

The White House has quadrupled the number of signatures required to receive an official response to petitions submitted on its We the People website, after a surge in its popularity.

The Obama administration will now only be required to respond when a petition gathers 100,000 signatures, up from the previous 25,000.

Use of the We the People site doubled in the final two months of 2012, when petitions were added to grant Texas the right to secede from the US, to deport Piers Morgan and to keep him in the US ("because the UK doesn't want him&quot . All easily passed the 25,000 signature threshold.

Macon Phillips, White House director of digital strategy, wrote in a blog post that the site's popularity exceeded the "wildest expectations".

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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/16/white-house-petitions-100000-signatures

[lunatica]

1. In a country of more than 300 million

100 thousand is a much better indicator than 25 thousand.

[graham4anything]

2. Great! It costs taxpayers millions in wasted federal dollars responding to conspiracy theorists

like Orly Taitz and the NRA terror sympathizers

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

4. But it was worth it for the "Death Star" response...

http://www.eonline.com/news/378041/white-house-responds-to-star-wars-death-star-petition

[longship]

6. Indeed! Classic geeky snark!

However, they probably could have had 100K signatures for a Death Star.

[arcane1]

3. 25k seemed like a rather low number to begin with n/t

[malthaussen]

5. Since they'll ignore the petitions no matter how many sigs

... doesn't make much difference. However "witty" some of the responses -- all rejections -- are.

-- Mal

[pmorlan1]

7. Move the Goal Post

I wonder how many signatures will be required next year?

[Zoeisright]

9. It's a good idea.

Maybe weed out some of the fucking crazies.

Anything else to whine about?

[GoneOffShore]

10. Thanks for your concern.

Nice Avatar though.

[Sunlei]

8. how do we know the signers are legit these days? a paid media company can work from a list of real

names, make 1,000s of new email/accounts and place the legit name and address on their petition.

A small group could game in 10k sigs in a couple hours, that happened in the beginning of the petition system when it was 10k. Then it seemed to happen with a couple issues for the 25k..the issue goes from 4k sigs to 25k overnight!!

raising it to 100k sigs required is not the answer, that's to many sigs. That number of sigs cuts out many smaller groups of Americans with real issues.

Although just having a visable petition is some exposure, it's probably best to send letters,emails,faxes and phone the WH a gazallion times aswell.

.