In an increasingly digital world, petitions have shifted to an online format that allows for at home political involvement — but how effective are these petitions when it comes to enacting change?
On Inauguration Day, the Biden Administration shut down We the People, the White House’s official e-petition website. Prior to its removal, a petition required 450 signatures within the first 30 days in order to “be searchable within Whitehouse. gov.” To warrant a response from the government, it had to attain 100,000 signatures within 30 days. At these standards, only 268 petitions warranted a response from the government. Of those 268, three
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resulted in legislative change, giving We The People a 1% success rate. Change.org is now the most popular website for e-petitions with more than 200 million users, yet it has a similar success rate when it comes to legislative action. This illuminates a common misconception when it comes to online petitions: meeting a signature quota does not ensure legislative success. Rather, change.org promotes the function of petitions as a way to garner attention for an issue rather than directly solve it. Online petitions are especially popular among young adults, with 21.87% of change.org’s users being between 18 and 24 years old. While change. org does not allow users under the age of 16, many students utilize social media as a platform to share petitions. Change.org recognizes the importance of social media and provides users with a “Take the next step!” button after they have created a petition, which allows them to share their petition on selected platforms. Involvement in politics is currently high among youth ages 18-24, with data from 2018 showing that 48% had reported signing a petition, compared to only 34% in 2016.
50x
65.9%
43.2%
289 PETITIONS ON CHANGE. ORG ARE searchable under the keywords “high school,”
Because it is not affiliated with the legislative branch,
Popular topics on Change.org based on search results:
CHANGE.ORG DOES NOT ENSURE IMMEDIATE LEGAL CHANGE WHEN A PETITION MEETS ITS GOAL NUMBER OF SIGNATURES.
ENVIRONMENT (45,678) HEALTH CARE (26,472) JUSTICE (55,161)
WHEN A PETITION IS SHARED MORE THAN 50 TIMES, it is seven times more likely to reach its signature quota
289
ACCORDING TO A CASUAL SURVEY OF 818 RESPONDENTS given by The Muse through English classes, 65.9% of students on campus have signed an online petition.
43.2% OF STUDENTS WHO SIGNED A PETITION reported seeing updates related to the topic of the petition they signed
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