Change.org Is Amplifying the Power of a Signature

Last fall, New Jerseyans Abigail and Elizabeth Fournier logged onto the website Change.org and asked others worldwide to join them in pushing their governor to sign a bill then moving through that state’s legislature that would ban farms from raising hogs in gestation crates. “Please sign our petition to encourage Governor Christie to support S.998 and stand up against animal abuse,” they wrote. The issue pitted animal-rights activists against large agricultural interests. But the 131,680 signatures that appeared on the Fourniers’ petition over the next month didn’t budge Christie from his previous position. In late November, he vetoed the bill. “Sadly,” the Fourniers wrote in an update, “it seems like he is more concerned about his future political career than his obligation to New Jersey voters.”

But actually, there was no way for Christie or his staff could tell how many New Jersey voters had signed the Fourniers’ petition. The site could not even say for certain if any of those 131,680 names belonged to people registered to vote anywhere in the United States. While the Fourniers griped that their governor had chosen to side with Iowa business interests over a home-state constituency, Change.org was unequipped to present the types of data that might present countervailing political leverage against Christie. For example: How many of the 131,680 signatures came from registered independent voters with a history of casting a ballot in New Hampshire’s Republican primary?