Do petitions actually have an affect or do they do just express that people want change?
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Depends on your legal framework. In many parliamentary systems petitions have to be considered by a representative body if put forward by sufficient number of people.
In California petitions literally put legislation on the ballot (bypassing the state legislature.)
It has a fairly dramatic effect.
Expressing that a lot of people want change *is* an effect. In a system where popular vote determines who obtains and retains power, an expression of popular support for a movement or cause is something that can motivate change.
Just the list existing works. It pulls people on the fence (or that think the opinion is unpopular) to the cause.
The big question is who are you petitioning and why…
The purpose of a petition is mainly to demonstrate that a significant amount of people agree with a viewpoint. So there is nothing stopping you petitioning for absolutely any cause you wish – want to create a petition because you feel the flag on the United States should be changed to green, yellow and purple? Feel free… Petition McDonald’s because you want them to change the shape of their burgers to triangles? Sure…
I think it is fairly obvious however that both of those petitions would fall on deaf ears, and however many votes you get they are probably going to be ignored by the people in control of the relevant areas.
At the same time there are many places where petitions can be forces for good. Petitioning for a suitable topic and demonstrating to the appropriate people that you have significant support for your cause can be a great way to help your cause – a local council organising their budget may very well take interest and consider your requests if you can show that a lot of people also agree that a new play park would be a good use of their budget, or that you think they shouldn’t be cutting funding for libraries or a whole host of other topics.
As a great example the UK has an official website based on this – anyone is free to suggest a topic/cause and publicise it, and if it gets more than a set amount of votes it will be officially considered.
So will every petition be useful? Absolutely not, but they can be a very good way of demonstrating to people how much people there are in support of a particular idea.
Just FYI, people are talking about different types of petitions, here.
There are “official” petitions in the US that get candidates and propositions on ballots. These absolutely have an effect and, in many states, is the *only* way to get on the ballot.
Other types of petitions don’t have any “official” effect and rarely have any real effect. It is very rare that a petition gives anyone new information. Whatever petition you signed, there’s another opposed petition that has just as many signatures. And most petitions are so vague and useless it means nothing.
Like, say you sign a petition saying you want action for climate change. Most people would sign that. But if it was “sign a petition to enact a carbon tax that would cost poor and middle class people an extra $2000 a year” you might as well throw that directly into trash.
So “citizen’s petitions” are usually useless. Signing a piece of paper is free. Convincing people to take real action is hard.
People like petitions even though most of them do jack, because causes always start off pretty small. It’s what makes a goal either really pathetic or really noble, to try and build up from a tiny gang of achievers. When they actually do something, people will put them down, because you can rarely prove if a petition influenced a corporation. Others will build them up because you have to congratulate people to motivate them to serve a cause.
Nobody is sure who is influencing who how much, and people can exploit your claims about who you’re serving. It’s all a cycle of vague manipulation of other humans…
In the United States, the White House must respond to a petition that gathers 25,000 signatures in within 30 days. They are only obligated to respond, not act.
[In 2012 the White House responded to a petition requesting the government to construct a Star Wars style Death Star.](https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2485292/that-time-a-petition-to-build-a-real-death-star-got-so-big-the-white-house-had-to-respond)
In the US when people want to be out on the ballot they circulate a petition and if they get enough sigs it can get on tbe ballet. Don’t know the specifics
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