White House Chief Digital Officer Jason Goldman announced the administration will change the way it responds to e-petitions, setting a 60-day turnaround time for issuing official responses, previously there was no deadline. The White House communications team will now be dedicated to bringing petitions to decision-makers around the executive branch, Goldman said.
The White House also announced on Tuesday that Change.org, one of the biggest and most successful online petition websites, will be integrated with the "We the People" software, which means a signature at Change.org will count towards the official government tally.
In 2011, the White House launched a website that enabled the American public “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances," a right enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution. The aptly named "We the People" e-petition platform has become the most popular online official open government software in the United States, reaching 19.5 million users and garnering over 27 million signatures and 411,546 e-petitions as of this month.
A petition must receive 100,000 signatures in order to get an official response from the White House.
The new changes and commitments are the best evidence to date that the White House actually meant what it said when it set out to tackle "social civics" in April and sees this platform as an asset worth preserving, not a source of embarrassment.
Goldman acknowledged public skepticism about the administration's commitment to responding, given the backlog, and about the quality of the responses.
The most successful e-petitions have led the White House to release official responses on high-profile issues like the Stop Online Piracy Act. One petition spurred Congress to take up a bill that made it illegal to unlock cell phones. At worst, open petitions that the public clearly wanted addressed have sat unanswered, fueling public disillusionment about a "virtual ghost town." To critics, a petition platform where popular petitions remain unaddressed is transparency theater, not true open government.
The White House has committed, however, to responding more quickly and effectively for the remainder of the Obama administration.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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