CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

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

e-petitioning seems to be particularly encouraging if the understanding of the relationship between

public institutions and internet-based systems designed to make available additional and/or new

channels for political participation is to be improved.

Generally, petitions are characterized as formal solicitations or requests to an authority, usually a

governmental institution mostly legislative aim of government. In most democracies, the

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

systems established and managed by non-governmental, private organizations/ associations. Thus,

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

of informal e-petitions can be distinguished: e-petitions initiated by NGOs as part of political

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

laws and reforms, to increase accountability.

1.3 AIMS AND OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

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 /

institutional laws for better reforms with the following objectives:

1. Enable Sending in of petitions electronically over the internet.

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

legislative aim of government.

4. Improve the way petitions are handled and managed to help improve good governance.

1.4 LIMITATION OF THE PROJECT

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

Petition - A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government

official or public entity.

Legislative - having the power to make laws.

Citizen - a legally recognized subject or national of a state or commonwealth, either native or

naturalized.

Government - A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community,

often a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of

legislature, executive, and judiciary.

E-petition – electronic petition.

Parliament- a parliament is a legislative body of government.

 CHAPTER TWO

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.

2.2 PROS AND CONS

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

in the ostensible form of a petition (Stork Fountain Experiment (2019).

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

reversal of a United Airlines Dog Policy (Chicago Tribune, 2012).

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

an example of slacktivism (Mikkelson, 2007).

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

online e-Government petitions (UK GOVERNMENT, 2008).

2.3 E-mail petitions

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

attention to a cause from an online audience.

2.4 First successful Internet petition

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

ownership and general manager Mike Phillips.

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

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

2.5 Most successful Internet petitions

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

European Union following the Brexit referendum (Cheung, 2019).

The international record for most successful online petition is currently held by the Change.org

petition relating to death of George FloydGruenberg (2020). As of July 2020, it has over 19.3

million signatures and counting (NBC News, 2020).

2. 6 World Wide Web

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

between signers of the same petition.

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

with the earlier dedicated petition hosts.

In some cases petition sites have managed to reach agreement with state institutions about the

implementation mechanism of widely supported initiatives. Thus, platform ManaBalss.lv in Latvia

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

been either supported by parliament or are in the process of review.

2.7 EMPIRICAL REVIEWS

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

Internet petitions (Mikkelson, 2007).