White House Raises Petition Threshold from 25K to 100K Signatures

The White House is making it more difficult for groups of citizens to petition the government.

Yesterday, they announced that they’re raising the signature threshold for responding to petitions from 25,000 to over 100,000 signatures within 30 days.

Apparently, too many complaints (petitions) are reaching the previous threshold too quickly for them to respond adequately.

The White House writes:

As we’ve seen overall use skyrocket, more petitions are crossing the threshold — and doing so much more quickly.

In the first 10 months of 2012, it took an average of 18 days for a new petition to cross the 25,000-signature threshold. In the last two months of the year, that average time was cut in half to just 9 days, and most petitions that crossed the threshold collected 25,000 signatures within five days of their creation. More than 60 percent of the petitions to cross threshold in all of 2012 did so in the last two months of the year.

The White House called the increase in participation a “good problem” to have.

Turns out that ‘good problem’ is only getting better, so we’re making another adjustment to ensure we’re able to continue to give the most popular ideas the time they deserve.

The White House included a nifty infographic to illustrate the announcement: