
Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People - imjared
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/01/15/why-we-re-raising-signature-threshold-we-people
======
cheald
Wow, that infographic is misleading.

<http://cl.ly/image/2n1H2Q0z1919>

They quote that "162 responses" number right after saying "petitions must
receive 100k signatures", when none of those responded to had to have received
100k signatures.

Additionally, 2.1 million signatures (responded to) divided by 162 petitions
(responded to) is an average of 12,963 signatures per petition. The largest
petition ever - obviously an outlier - received just over 300k. In fact, only
_one_ petition ever has cracked the 100k mark:
<https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petitions/popular/0/2/0>

Not only that, but the top three were related to an exceptionally charged
issue that was sparked by an absolutely awful tragedy and then catalyzed by an
awful group of people whose entire purpose in life is to cause controversy,
which hints that outside of another elementary school rampage, nothing will
gain the momentum necessary to meet this new threshold. I'd argue that the GMO
petition is the first legitimate "issue" petition on that list, and it's
nearly 40k signatures short of this new threshold.

This is more or less a guarantee that almost nothing else will reach the
threshold necessary to receive a response.

~~~
zainny
There is one important number missing from the infographics in this blog post.

Difference Made: 0

~~~
pekk
Do you think it is better not to provide any website for registering opinions?

~~~
InclinedPlane
Of course. Without it people would be forced to contact their congressional
reps, their senators, their local law makers, send letters directly to the
president, and get involved with the media. All of which are precisely the
sorts of ways you can actually effect change.

~~~
alexkus
Indeed, I've always thought of them as a cunning way of soaking up some of the
pressure.

The UK's version ( <http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/> ) goes a step further as
you have to provide your name and a full address, so regularly signing
petitions will be giving the Government a nice set of data to mine to provide
a political profile based on views on certain issues...

The site says "This information will not be used for any purpose other than in
relation to the e-petition." but that doesn't fill me with confidence that
they can't do mining...

------
tokenadult
The founders of the United States knew that a representative democracy (what
they termed a "republic") has some distinct advantages over direct democracy.
This fact was discussed at length in the jointly authored Federalist Papers.

<http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fedpapers.html>

History shows that this fact is rediscovered in each new generation through
hard experience, on a bipartisan basis.

~~~
mtgx
But that doesn't mean republics can't have more direct democracy elements in
them. For example I love the idea of citizens being able to create a
referendum (in a certain state, I believe) in Germany. You still have a
threshold, so people don't start creating one for all sorts of crazy ideas,
but this is a great example of how citizens can help improve the laws in their
countries. I think this referendum is usually added to the next election.

Such system obviously need to be fined-tuned to avoid having the population
"abuse" them, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be pursued. I think they
can be great additions to any democratic republic.

~~~
anigbrowl
Another poster has said the same thing, but it's worth repeating: take a long
hard look at California first. We have that here and it hasn't really worked
out very well. It would be worth your while to visit CA in the month before an
election, and look at the incredibly low quality of the political advocacy
here (bullshit 30 second TV attack ads on every conceivable topic). The ballot
pamphlet mailed to all California voters lays out the text of all proposed
laws as well as arguments for and against, mentioning sponsor and source.
Hardly anyone reads the whole ballot pamphlet.

~~~
barry-cotter
California is much, much too big for direct democracy to have a Hope in hell
of working. Representative democracy has enough problems running it.
California is too big for it is not a killer argument against direct
democracy.

~~~
anigbrowl
Well it sort-of works, just not all that well. I don't buy the size argument
because the same pros and cons exist at the municipal and county level - some
stupid propositions do well, some smart ones do poorly, too few people are
clear on exactly what they're voting for.

------
samstave
I'm of the opinion that this is in direct response to how quickly 25,000
signatures were raised to fire Ortiz.

How would they like it if the citizens of the US took the same tact: "Hey
Obama administration, I'd like to inform you that I am choosing a different
tax bracket arbitrarily with the same level of authority as you show me
respect as a citizen."

~~~
afarrell
"This new threshold applies only to petitions created from this point forward
and is not retroactively applied to ones that already exist."

So this will have no affect on the Ortiz petition.

~~~
waqf
effect

~~~
afarrell
Thank you. Though, it won't cause them to speak their responses in a southern
accent either.

------
msandford
"We were really hoping that you'd voice your dissatisfaction with government
in a very limited way and over trivial things. Now that you're calling us out
on real issues, we're going to make it much, much harder!"

~~~
jacalata
Yes. Now that we're giving official responses on building a death star, it's
just gotten too real.

------
temphn
What happened to cause that growth is that in mid/late November, the secession
petitions went viral. This was a completely new audience of Red Staters and
responsible for the hockey stick growth.

------
ChuckMcM
Wow, that is a pretty stunning change. Granted it wasn't another 5x boost, is
the "within 30 days" requirement also new or has that always been the case?

The only thing that would have made this change remotely reasonable if it
included language that the administration would, in the presence of a 100K
sigs in 30 days petition, _actually respond to the petitition._ But I noticed
there wasn't any more commitment above "official response" for which "no
comment" is sufficient apparently.

Reminds me of the Steve Martin spoof on DUI tests:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_183855...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_183855&feature=iv&src_vid=-0MXU3J6Qbs&v=unseSFWjuqs)

------
Firehed
I wish there was more resolution along the x-axis; I'd really when that
inflection point occurred and what triggered it. There's exponential growth,
and there's literal overnight success, and this appears to be the latter.

Also, generic vague whining about the government only pretending to care.

~~~
sprobertson
I did a quick search and it looks like it might be election related: "...
eight different petitions requesting secession following the outcome of the
November presidential election. The petition for the state of North Carolina
to secede from the union earned more 31,835 signatures, while South Carolina's
had just over 26,000."

[http://www.wcnc.com/news/local/Official-White-House-
response...](http://www.wcnc.com/news/local/Official-White-House-response-to-
secession-petitions-186982251.html)

~~~
pdonis
Which begs the question: why are people petitioning _the White House_ to have
their states secede from the Union? That's just stupid on so many levels that
I don't even know where to begin.

~~~
jjguy
I read it as evidence of the erosion of state's rights. Perception is reality
and those folks clearly thought they needed Daddy DC's permission.

We nationalize too many issues on which our nation is deeply divided. If,
instead of bickering for years over an issue in Congress, we pushed those
decisions back to the states, then local initiatives would be put into place.
With time, the right solutions would naturally develop. Competition is king.

Of course, doing so takes strength and wisdom from our Congressmen to admit
they could not come to a national compromise. Many will call it failure. Thus,
it will not occur.

~~~
pekk
Of course the states do not need DC's permission to form the Confederacy...
even grade schoolers know the Articles of Confederation provide the
constitutional basis for secession. ;)

~~~
Firehed
Not if you went to grade school in America!

/wishes I was joking.

------
ISL
Because they'd like to be less responsive to citizen concerns?

10,000,000 / 25,000 = 400 responses/yr. I'd like to believe our government
could deliver slightly more than one well-considered response per day.

~~~
rikacomet
what is the 25k here?

~~~
btilly
That is the old threshold for petitions.

Note that 400 is a strict overestimate if votes were evenly divided between
petitions. But some petitions get 2x the vote total, and some don't reach the
threshold. So the real number is significantly less. But the trend is clear.

------
SpikeDad
Thought I couldn't be less disappointed in the Obama administration but they
don't cease to fail me.

I think the first new petition should be to require petitions to return to 25K
threshold.

~~~
edtechdev
This (decision by the White House, not your idea) is ridiculous, I'll
definitely sign a petition to bring it back down to 25,000. It took an average
of 18 days for petitions to reach the 25,000 threshold before it spiked after
the election (because of all the secession petitions and Newtown and joke
petitions like the Death Star).

Now if a petition doesn't cross the 100,000 threshold in 30 days they ignore
it. Assuming the the number of petition signings falls back closer to what it
was before the election, it will take an average of about 60 days to reach the
100,000 threshold, meaning most petitions will be ignored.

~~~
anigbrowl
Most petitions _should_ be ignored. It turns out that it's absurdly easy to
gin up a 25,000-strong flash mob on the internet. I don't think things like
secession petitions deserve a serious response. Things like petitions to
deport some guy on CNN for expressing his low opinion of the second amendment
are uncomfortable reminiscent of lynching.

------
haroldp
Has anyone seen a good answer to one of these petitions? Or a policy change?

~~~
cdcox
Yes I'd say about 20% of them get a well explained no, 20% get a yes based off
something already happening, 10% get a yes on their own, 20% are things they
can't comment on (active legal cases for instance), 20% get stupid responses,
and 10% are really stupid petitions to begin with (like states leaving the
union). More than anything I think the petitions let the administration know
how to prioritize releases. It informs them what is 'hot'.

Some highlights:

Obama administration backs down on Marijuana Legalization:
[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/addressing-
legaliz...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/addressing-legalization-
marijuana)

Army Stops using monkeys (this actually happened in response to this petition
as far as I can tell): [https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/army-no-
longer-usi...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/army-no-longer-using-
monkeys-part-training-aberdeen-proving-ground)

National Guard Joint Chief of Staff created:
[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/chief-national-
gua...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/chief-national-guard-bureau-
joins-joint-chiefs-staff)

This petition (and opinion polls probably) helped prompt the administration to
appeal SOPA and PIPA: [https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/combating-
online-p...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/combating-online-
piracy-while-protecting-open-and-innovative-internet)

This petition (and some campaign promises) have slowly resulted in increased
digitization, recently the house put much of their data up in XML:
[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/digitizing-
federal...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/digitizing-federal-
public-records)

This petition is well written if nothing else:
[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/doubling-and-
tripl...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/doubling-and-tripling-
what-we-can-accomplish-space)

These petitions happened at the same time as (though it's debatable if it
resulted in) the president declaring he would not defend DOMA:
[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/greater-
protection...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/greater-protections-
same-sex-couples)

[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/repealing-
discrimi...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/repealing-
discriminatory-defense-marriage-act)

This petition coincided with a policy change on student loan burden reduction:
[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/taking-action-
redu...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/taking-action-reduce-
burden-student-loan-debt)

------
hakaaak
Here is the reality. Serious concerns will get few votes. Things such as
building a death star that are completely stupid and not serious get lots of
votes.

So what this is really saying is, "We're going to raise the threshold so we
won't have to waste effort replying to your death star petitions, and btw we
don't give a fuck about the little man and never did. Fuck you. Case closed.
Now if we can get the media to sponsor some petition we really care about like
banning all assault weapons or raising the debt ceiling, then you can vote on
that, and we'll be glad to tell you why you have a great idea."

~~~
tkahn6
The change in policy means that instead of needing 0.013% of the voting age
population to sign your petition you need 0.052%.

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28+25%2C000+people+%2F...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28+25%2C000+people+%2F+%28population+of+the+Us+18-64%29%29+*+100)

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28+100%2C000+people+%2...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28+100%2C000+people+%2F+%28population+of+the+Us+18-64%29%29+*+100)

Please leave the hyperbole and fatalistic rhetoric on other sites.

~~~
hakaaaak
Killed my other account last night as I swore again I'd stop posting to HN...
that didn't work I suppose.

Do you not understand that raising the threshold 4x is going to reduce the
chance of the little man getting his concern addressed by a factor of 4?

My point was that the petitions I've seen on that site getting to the top are
too often just joke petitions, and yet there are many legitimate petitions
that don't get enough votes to meet the thresholds but _should_ be addressed.
Joke petitions have given them a reason to not address serious issues, and the
more the threshold gets raised, the less of a chance that serious issues will
get addressed.

If you seriously think that you can get 0.52% of the voting age population to
sign an online petition, think about how much money and time both political
parties had to spend just trying to get people to vote for president and how
they were pouring millions into swaying 1% of the population. 0.013% vs. 0.52%
is a HUGE difference even though it might not seem like it.

~~~
tkahn6
0.052%

------
martingordon
The first thing I thought when I saw this post was that it was a response to
the success of the Carmen Ortiz petition. I understand the change doesn't
apply retroactively, but it would help future officials face less public
scrutiny from these petitions.

The growth over the last two months were clearly due to the election and I
doubt that that type of growth will continue. We will likely see a drop back
down to previous levels, resulting in it being more difficult to achieve the
requisite number of signatures overall.

~~~
olefoo
This just means that petition drives will need to be more organized and
focused. I think the Carmen Ortiz petition was somewhat of a fluke. You aren't
going to find that confluence of anger, focus, and clarity of target very
often. And we have yet to see if it will have any effect. The Ortiz petition
is only effective because she is a political appointee who serves at the
Presidents pleasure. And while most of the presidents cabinet falls into that
category; it is extremely rare for one to do something that justifies the
intense public anger that we've seen here.

------
tptacek
Wait, the most signatures _ever received_ on a petition is 300,000, and
they're setting the threshold for a response to a petition at 1/3rd of that?

~~~
cperciva
Once a petition crosses the threshold, people are far less likely to continue
signing it.

------
alpb
Is Aaron Swartz-related petitions the main reason for the recent peak in the
total users number or is it just the service getting popular these days? If it
is aaronsw related then the acceleration should slightly decline after a few
days, hopefully I'm not assuming wrong.

~~~
MBCook
I seriously doubt that Swartz-related petitions had anything to do with it. I
agree with you that they will probably die down in a few days, but the story
doesn't seem to have made it too far outside the tech industry.

I was quite surprised to hear a quick story on NRP about how his possible
punishment may have been out of proportion. Has it even been covered during
the major newscasts like NBC Nightly News, CBS News, Fox News, CNN, etc; at
least for over 60 seconds?

I'd be willing to guess that even among those who watch a large amount of
news, the average American didn't hear the story at all.

------
mtgx
Congress should have a similar system, perhaps one for each representative and
each senator. They could get a better sense for what the people they represent
want. Rather now that's only done through e-mails (which probably never get
read by the politicians themselves), phone calls (same thing, and a bit
inefficient considering most people won't bother to call), and visiting in
person (probably done by very few people).

They could even be done in a sort of Google Moderator/Reddit way, although
perhaps more fine-tuned and with certain thresholds (but not too high,
especially initially).

~~~
afarrell
This would be great, though you would need some way to tie people's accounts
to their residences, which would require them to work with boards of elections
give out the elections with the voter registration receipts.

~~~
Firehed
I fail to see a problem with voicing your opinion to an elected official, even
if that person is not representing you. Especially when one state making a
decision can set a precedent for others.

Although I do think that the votes should be tied to location, even if other
locations are allowed in. I think a ZIP code is enough here; it's a letter,
not a vote.

~~~
afarrell
Why should a representative care about the opinions of people who aren't
voting for her or contributing to her campaign? There are lots of opinionated
people on the internet.

I simply picked the board of elections because they already are entrusted with
the capacity to verify that a certain person lives in a certain ward or
district. I suspect zip codes would not be fine-grained enough for local
government fora, where this would be most useful.

~~~
Firehed
They don't have to weight everything equally, but as I previously stated,
politicians that actually want to do good and not just get re-elected (I hear
some exist) might actually care about their precedent-setting decision and how
it will impact non-residents.

~~~
afarrell
I think there is certainly value in outside voices. Journalists and bloggers
play that role now. I guess the issue I have is that any given district could
get suddenly swamped by outsiders. Why not have it be the case that
constituents would bring that voice in by linking to their post?

One idea that I have some sympathy toward is making the representatives
responsible for moderating the fora as they see fit. They would then be judged
at the ballot box if they pissed everyone off...or they would really skillful
at creating false consensus.

------
mathteacher1729
This is a nice interactive visualization of the top 50 White House Petitions
in tabular, map, and graph form. You can sort by most popular, greatest
average signature gain, and male/female ratio.

<http://roadtolarissa.com/whitehouse/>

The top 5 have sharp spikes in Nov / Dec 2012. Here is some analysis of the
Texas Secession Petition:
<http://www.unc.edu/~ncaren/secessionists/daybyday.html> and

------
desireco42
You can raise limit all you want, you will not dodge issues we are interested
in. Even if we have to make our website(s).

I've been thinking how to celebrate accomplishments of Aaron Swartz and I
think being active on Demand Progress is a good way, for start. There are some
other ideas, but ideas are easy to come by, I think joining and propping
already working ideas is more important.

Just my 2c.

------
geuis
I hate to be a cynic but the timing seems too coincidental with the death of
Aaron and the petition to remove Carmen Ortiz from office. She was nominated
to her position by the President, so there is an assumption (perhaps invalid)
of close ties to the administration.

~~~
siganakis
From the article:

"This new threshold applies only to petitions created from this point forward
and is not retroactively applied to ones that already exist."

So the Ortiz petition will be unaffected.

~~~
nonamegiven
It's the other way around. The change to the petition process was affected by
the embarrassing pace of the Ortiz petition.

------
jpxxx
Meaningless, insulting charade made more meaningless, insulting. Buzzfeed at
11.

------
comice
Why exactly _are_ they raising the signature threshold? It doesn't say.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
It was explained the first time they raised the treshold [0]:

"The massive participation on We the People means that in the first week over
30 petitions reached 5,000 signatures, the initial threshold to generate an
official response from the White House. At our first internal review meeting
Friday, two things were clear:

(a) everyone is thrilled about this new challenge and excited to process the
first batch, but

 _(b) this many petitions challenges our ability to offer timely and
meaningful responses to petitions in the long term._

[...] This may not be the last time we change the thresholds, both in terms of
signatures and amount of time."

So they're admitting that simply throwing more people at the problem won't
work in the long run, since petitioners expect _meaningful_ responses from
people who are knowledgeable. See Mythical Man-Month [1] and PG's decision to
limit the size of the YC W13 class [2].

[0] [http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/10/03/good-problem-
have-...](http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/10/03/good-problem-have-raising-
signature-threshold-white-house-petitions)

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-
Month#The_myth...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-
Month#The_mythical_man-month)

[2] <http://ycombinator.com/w13smaller.html>

------
obilgic
Why not make the threshold dynamic?

~~~
baddox
They could simply reply to the _x_ most-signed petitions every _y_ weeks.

~~~
harryh
This solution seems ideal. And if your petition gets screwed because it
happens to be created at the same time as X other super popular ones you could
always re-create it for the next cycle.

------
SCAQTony
Well, I find the timing suspicious.

I know that gun enthusiasts have been creating dozens of them as of late and
as silly as some of them aree, they are meeting the 25,000 signature goal.

The "fire Carmen Ortiz" took less than three-days to reach fruition and now
that the White house has devalued the 25,000 number, I hope the petition can
reach 250,000 by it's end date to really send a message.

~~~
olefoo
The Carmen Ortiz petition passed the threshold for an answer before the
requirement was raised.

It's right now (early Wednesday morning pacific time) crawling up toward
35,000 at the current rate there's a good chance that it will cross the
100,000 mark before 11 February.

------
rikacomet
Btw, can anyone confirm, how safe is this, against automated clicks, and paid
clicks?

~~~
spinlocked
Can people in say, Saudi Arabia, sign up and petition?

------
ggchappell
So, what happened some time around late November 2012?

EDIT: One possible answer here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5064211>

~~~
dangrossman
Westboro Baptist Church planned a protest of the Sandy Hook funerals. The
petitions to denounce or strip the tax exempt status of the group got well
over half a million signatures in December.

------
transfire
What I want to know, are there any petitions at all to which the official
response was essentially, "Hell, yes. Brilliant idea! We'll get right on it!".

------
JosephHatfield
Not thrilled about the increase in the number of signatures required, but I do
like that they are going to release an API for accessing the petitions.

------
kahirsch
I think the sign-up only requires an email verification step, so it's not
clear how many people have actually signed up.

------
wiredfool
There's a hockey stick growth curve for you.

------
businessleads
Wasn't the whole thing set up so the government could spam the signers - like
every other petition site?

~~~
Firehed
I've received no emails as a result of signing any petition. I think this is
just a much more direct way for the government to pretend it cares what we
want while continuing to do whatever it pleases.

~~~
pekk
Do you really expect the White House to unilaterally implement policy on
account of a few thousand 'online votes', a significant number of which might
be dupes or astroturf? Congress remains the way legislation gets passed no
matter how many feedback websites the executive makes.

~~~
Firehed
No, of course not. But if they've created this platform to make our voices
heard, I expect them to listen. Just like writing my elected officials, every
White House petition I've signed has gotten me either no response or a
tactfully-worded "fuck you, go away"

------
wdr1
Does this even matter?

Aside from beer recipes & death stars, what success stories are there behind
these petitions?

------
brudgers
tl;dr

Dear America, shut the fuck up.

------
niggler
Seems strange that the White House would use github.com and not just host it
themselves ...

------
rprasad
The Death Star petition and the Piers Morgan petition were the straws that
broke the camel's back, according to a friend in the WH PR dept.

~~~
gbhn
Really? Those seem like PR gimmes. You can't ask for better softballs.

~~~
andrewflnr
I know, right? When else do you get to say "The Administration does not
support blowing up planets"? I think that was my favorite piece of the whole
Death Star thing.

