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Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

whitehouse.gov

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Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#111

Post by Firehed »

afarrell wrote: post #99
mtgx wrote: post #37

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 peopl…

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.

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.

Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#112

Post by unclenoriega »

redthrowaway wrote: post #93
res0nat0r wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like they've realized how easy and useless it is to create a petition and have people who "support" it spend 5 seconds clicking thru any petition that comes into whitehouse.gov, so they are raising the bar to cut down on the time they waste responding to nonsense.

Still, merely raising the vote threshold seems a poor solution. Unfortunately, I can't think of a better one.

This seems like a better one: http://politics.slashdot.org/story/13/01/03/1833222/why-we-t...

Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#113

Post by snowwrestler »

rockyleal wrote: post #103
tokenadult wrote: post #10

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.

I clicked, and I see a long list of papers. Which one is the relevant one to this topic? I'd like to read them all, but can't afford that much time right now...

It's worth reading them all--in order is fine, so start with #1. There is no rush; they've been around almost 250 years already.

Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#114

Post by rprasad »

jicksta2 wrote: post #25
tokenadult wrote: post #10

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.

"...this fact"? The only fact here is that the thing you're claiming is a fact actually isn't. By the way, your celebration of this policy change is especially ironic considering the United States empire is completely buckling under the enormity of its failure as we speak. Right, we're "re-discovering the efficiency of representative democracy" by decreasing accountability... America's governance system is very compl…

America is not a democracy. It is a republic. The states are also republics, though feature some democratic traits, i.e., the initiative process.

Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#115

Post by rprasad »

gbhn wrote: post #47
rprasad wrote: post #32

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.

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

The Piers Morgan petition was only a softball to those capable of rational thought. To the many people who signed it, it was a legitimate petition. The purpose of raising the signature limit was to prevent petitions like that from reaching the point at which the WH has obligated itself to respond.

Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#116

Post by cstejerean »

cheald wrote: post #26

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…

That link seems to only show open petitions. The ones that have already been addressed are not shown. For example, the Piers Morgan petition went over 100k but is not on that list.

Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#117

Post by [deleted] »

harryh wrote: post #38
baddox wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could simply reply to the x most-signed petitions every y weeks.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#118

Post by redthrowaway »

unclenoriega wrote: post #112
redthrowaway wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, merely raising the vote threshold seems a poor solution. Unfortunately, I can't think of a better one.

This seems like a better one: http://politics.slashdot.org/story/13/01/03/1833222/why-we-t...

It's certainly better than anything I'd thought of, but I don't really think of WtP as a user-based site in the same way that Digg is/was. People don't, I suspect, sign up for an account and then regularly visit and choose which petitions to sign. Rather, someone starts a facebook campaign, people go to the site, sign up, vote, then forget about it. I'm guessing regular emails from WtP inviting someone who once voted to ban abortion to come back and vote on a random issue probably wouldn't work out very well.

The site could, instead, be turned into a more community-oriented place, with discussions on the proposed petitions and a sense of being part of the in-crowd when one you've talked about gets answered.

In fact, this is starting to sound an awful lot like Wikipedia, with the same kinds of drives and motivations. Create a set of guidelines for community interaction and petition content, then let "contributors" monitor proposed petitions, cull the obvious crap, improve the writing and cases cited, then publish them to the "new" page. You could have a couple of White House interns be mods and settle any disputes between members.

I'm just brainstorming, here. In reality, it seems like an idea that's nice in principle but unworthy and unworkable in practice.

Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#119

Post by diminoten »

pekk wrote: post #104
zainny wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one important number missing from the infographics in this blog post. Difference Made: 0

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

In a word? Yes. Providing the illusion of listening is actively deceptive, whereas not having the website won't trick people into thinking they're interacting with their government.

Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#120

Post by slavak »

baddox wrote: post #7
obilgic wrote: post #2

Why not make the threshold dynamic?

They could simply reply to the x most-signed petitions every y weeks.

This works great for web-services, not so much for government.

A government service needs transparency. 'You get a response after X signatures' is simple, understandable, and transparent. 'You get a response if you're in the top Y' is opaque; my petition was #Y yesterday, how did it become #Y+1 today when it's time for the official count? It was #Y at 7am, why did it suddenly jump to #Y+1 for 5 minutes at 11am when they were selecting the winners?

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