Design and Implementation of Online Petition CHAPTER ONE AND TWO
Design and Implementation of Online Petition CHAPTER ONE AND TWO
Design and Implementation of Online Petition CHAPTER ONE AND TWO
INTRODUCTION
The chance to petition political authorities or other government organizations can be traced back
into ancient history (Bockhofer 1999; Hirsch 2007; Klasen 1991). During the span of the centuries,
this communication channel between subjects and rulers was ceaselessly adjusted to changing
political and social condition needs. The most recent improvements of the political opportunity to
submit petitions are closely related to the rise of the internet as a medium of mass communication.
Among the various possibilities to offer formal online participation channels to citizens, e-petitions
were clearly at the forefront of official, fully operational e-democracy activities of governments
and parliaments. In 2000, the Scottish e-petitioner was the first e-petition system to be introduced
in recent times to help elect parliament members. After two years, another regional parliament, the
Parliament of Queensland, stuck to the same design, by designing an e-petition system of its own.
In 2004-2005, the German Federal Parliament, the Bundestag, is currently working on an e-petition
system like Scottish one. Also, at the community level, over a hundred Norwegian districts are
offering e-petitions to their residents since 2005. In addition, the British Parliament in London is
currently considering about implementing an e-petition system in the near future (House of
Commons 2008). The e-petition system has not only been developed only for parliaments, also
different governments intuitions started to follow this path: The probably most famous example –
and a highly controversial one at the same time – is the British Prime Minister’s e-petition system
which started in 2006. This run down could be proceeded with various examples, such as the e-
petition systems of the European Parliament or in South Korea. E-petitioning has been actualized
and implemented by various public institutions – compared to the most common form of
petitioning which is manual– moderately develop. Against this setback in the development of e-
petitions systems, having a closer look at the advancements during the past decade in the field of
public institutions and internet-based systems designed to make available additional and/or new
residences have the right to petition government, parliament and/or other public entities is codified
in legal documents, in many instances even in constitutional law. With respect to electronic
petitions (e-petitions) which involves the use of technology and communication technologies
mostly the internet, it is necessary to distinguish between formal and informal types (Santucci
2007): Formal e-petitions refer to regulated and at any rate somewhat legitimately arranged e-
petition systems operated by public institutions. Informal e-petitions, then again, are manual
the prerequisites requirements for launching informal e-petitions and gathering signatures online
are not dependent to public law. Of course, informal e-petitions usually seek to address public
institutions after a certain number of signatures have been collected. Empirically, two main types
campaigns, and e-petition platforms operated by private organizations (both commercial and not-
for-profit) which provide the internet-based infrastructure to initiate e-petitions and collect
signatures online.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE STUDY
This paper is to develop an online petition management system, to replace the complex manual
way of sending petitions across government institutional, the configuration of the technical design
of the online-based petition systems and the dynamics of political participation, the analysis of the
e-petition case studies particularly deals to solve the following issues: Replace the manual way of
sending in petitions, through a rigorous procedure, which is always difficult for citizens, Protection
of petition senders against insecurity in countries, Assist citizens to participant fully in government
The main aim of this research is to Design and Implement an Online Petition management System
that will allow citizens in a democratic society send in electronic petitions to assist government /
2. Petitions sent in can be easily managed, as government receive thousands of petitions daily.
3. Increase accountability, better governance among top government institutions and the
4. Improve the way petitions are handled and managed to help improve good governance.
This research is aim at implementing an online petition management system, I encountered the
following limitations in the course of the work: Lack of relevant materials, books and articles
related to the topic, High cost of internet data to get useful materials from the internet.
1.5 DEFINITION OF TERMS
naturalized.
often a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 INTRODUCTION
An online petition (or Internet petition, or e-petition) is a form of petition which is signed online,
usually through a form on a website. Visitors to the online petition sign the petition by adding their
details such as name and email address. Typically, after there are enough signatories, the resulting
letter may be delivered to the subject of the petition, usually via e-mail. The online petition may
also deliver an email to the target of the petition each time the petition is signed.
The format makes it easy for people to make a petition at any time. Several websites allow anyone
with computer access to make one to protest any cause, such as stopping construction or closure
of a store. Because petitions are easy to set up, the site can attract frivolous causes, or jokes framed
Online petitions may be abused if signers don't use real names, thus undermining its legitimacy.
Verification, for example via a confirmation e-mail can prevent padding a petition with false names
and e-mails. Many petition sites now have safeguards to match real world processes; such as local
governments requiring protest groups to present petition signatures, plus their printed name, and a
way to verify the signature (either with a phone number or identification number via a driver's
license or a passport) to ensure that the signature is legitimate and not falsified by the protestors
(Mikkelson, 2007).
There are now several major web initiatives featuring online petitions, for example Change.org,
Avaaz.org, and 38 Degrees. These are growing in popularity and ability to achieve political impact.
The Economist commented that Avaaz has had "some spectacular successes", but raises questions
about what objective measures can be used to assess "the reach of a global e-protest movement"
(The Economist, (2010). Recently, several petitions on Change.org have been attributed to the
Some legitimate non-governmental organizations (NGOs) shun online petitions. Reasons include
the paucity of examples of this form of petition achieving its objective. Critics frequently cite it as
In February 2007 an online petition against road pricing and car tracking on the UK Prime
Minister's own website attracted over 1.8 million e-signatures from a population of 60 million
people. The site was official but experimental at the time (BBC NEWS, 2007) Shocked
government ministers were unable to backtrack on the site's existence in the face of national news
coverage of the phenomenon. The incident has demonstrated both the potential and pitfalls of
A similar form of petition is the e-mail petition. This petition may be a simple chain letter,
requesting that its users forward them to a large number of people in order to meet a goal or to
attain a falsely promised reward. Other times the usage will contain a form to be printed and filled
out, or a link to an offsite online petition which the recipient can sign. Usually, the e-mail petition
focuses on a specific cause that is meant to cause outrage or ire, centering on a timely political or
cultural topic. (Mikkelson, 2007) E-mail petitions were among the earliest attempts to garner
The first known successful online petition was written during the summer of 1998. This was a
petition to the New York Mets with the goal of re-signing catcher Mike Piazza as a free agent.
Piazza had been obtained by the Mets earlier in the season and was eligible for free agency for the
1999 season. The petition was publicized through a GeoCities website, various newsgroups and
emails, garnering 10,316 signatures. The petition was sent to Mike Piazza, his agents, Mets
A digitized copy of the petition, documentation of the petition through news articles, and a sound
file of Mike Phillips announcing Piazza's signing for seven years along with his acknowledgment
of the petition are available in the research files of the A. Bartlett Giamatti Research Center of the
On 23 March 2019, the record for greatest number of verified signatures on an official government
petition was broken in the UK. The petition, remaining live until August 2019, calls to ‘Revoke
Article 50 and remain in the E.U.', (THE GUARDIAN, 2019) and had over 6 million signatures
by 31 March 2019 (STAFF GUARDIAN, (2019) coincided with the large national People's Vote
March on the same day, also protesting against the U.K. government's decision to leave the
petition relating to death of George FloydGruenberg (2020). As of July 2020, it has over 19.3
With the rise of the World Wide Web as a platform for commerce, activism and discussion, an
opportunity to garner attention for various social causes was perceived by various players,
resulting in a more formalized structure for online petitions; one of the first web-based petition
hosts, Petition Online, was founded in 1999, with others such as GoPetition (founded in 2000),
thePetitionSite.com, iPetitions, and others being established in the years since. Petition hosts
served as accessible external locations for the creation of a wide variety of petitions for free by
users, providing easier interfaces for such petitions in comparison to the previous e-mail petitions
and informal web forum-based petitions. However, petition hosts were criticized for their lax
requirements from users who created or signed such petitions: petitions were often only signed
with false or anonymous nomenclatures, and often resulted in disorganized side commentary
The rise of online social networking in the later 2000s, however, resulted in both an increase of
Internet petition integration into social networks and an increase of visibility for such petitions;
Facebook, Change.org, Care2, Avaaz.org, SumOfUs, GoPetition and other sites serve as examples
of the integration of Internet petitions as a form of social media and user-generated content. Such
networks may have proven to be more fertile ground for the creation of, signing of and response
to online petitions, as such networks generally lack the heightened level of anonymity associated
has the authority to hand over to a national parliament any legally correct initiative which has been
signed by more than 10,000 authenticated supporters. Approximately half of these initiatives have
As is the case with public perceptions of slacktivism, Internet petitions are both a popular resort
of web-based activism and a target of criticism from those who feel that such petitions are often
disregarded by their targets because of the anonymity of petition signers; Snopes.com, for
example, sides against the usage of Internet petitions as a method of activism.Mikkelson (2007)
On the other hand, the creators of petition hosts, such as Randy Paynter of Care2 and
thePetitionSite.com, have defended web-based petitions as being more feasible, credible and
effective than e-mail petitions,CSCOAL (2010) claiming they are not fairly judged as a method of
activism by their critics. Since then, Snopes.com has removed the text about the inefficacy of