A colleague sent me a link to a Recall David Emerson Petition which got me thinking about online petition software. Can one set one up easily? Do they work? What are the ethical issues? How do you know you really have signatures? Here are some preliminary answers:
What sites offer online petition systems? I looked at three that seemed reasonable, PetitionOnline.com, iPetitions, and PetitionThem.com.
What can one expect for features? Because petitions are political and some of the organizations that have set these up have political inclinations, these sites do not automatically give you the petition. Two of them have a review process to filter frivolous petitions and so on. I find this a major difference from other free online service sites like Meet-O-Matic.
All the sites have extensive notes about privacy, especially of the confidential information about signatories. There is a trade-off here – if you don’t gather it the petition is useless – if you gather it you need to reassure petition proposers and signatories that their information will handled appropriately. The services also provide features for sending the completed petition to interested parties and then make circumspect claims about effectiveness. (Has anyone evaluated online petition effectiveness?)
What other issues come up? – Funding of these services is an issue. Some have ways to donate to the service, some include ads, and some have premium paid services. Linking ads to petitions could lead to some interesting juxtapositions. Political effectiveness is another issue – if it becomes trivial to mount petitions and to get thousands of signatures, will petitions be treated seriously?
My favorite use of a petition is the ‘Doris Day’ petition launched by Rick Mercer of “This Hour has 22 Minutes” that proposed that there be a referendum to get Stockwell Day (then leader of the Canadian Alliance party and advocate of citizen referendums) change his first name to “Doris”.
Someone want to do a proper comparison of these sites? Do you know of research into their effectiveness? (E-mail me if you have.)