Last year, the White House launched a new tool called We the People, offering a powerful and simple way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of issues. If a petition gathers enough signatures, policy officials review it and publish an official response.
From the beginning, We the People’s popularity exceeded our expectations. More than 600,000 signatures were received in the first 11 days and within two weeks, 81 petitions had reached the initial signature threshold of 5,000 signatures within 30 days. Raising the threshold to 25,0000 signatures within 30 days allowed us to balance our resources and focus on providing quality response and follow-up engagement. Even still, since October 3, 2011, we’ve had an additional 30 petitions cross the new threshold.
Check out key facts and figures about the We the People platform.