How is My Vote Forward different from petitions?

A petition collects signatures in support of one demand, written by whoever started it, and counts only the people who agree. My Vote Forward asks participants to rank many subjects against each other and reports the whole distribution, including what people ranked low, with a published method. Some petitions also carry legal force that the framework lacks: in Switzerland, 100,000 valid signatures collected within 18 months put a constitutional initiative to a national vote. The framework shares petitions’ main weaknesses, self-selection and organized mobilization, and does not claim to escape them.

The objection in its strongest form

The objection to My Vote Forward here is that it reinvents the petition. People who care about an issue can already sign, share, and mobilize. Petition platforms have shown that online signatures are easy to collect and easy to ignore; adding rankings and opinion items does not change the basic dynamic, in which organized groups turn out their supporters and everyone else stays home. If anything, the critic says, a petition is more honest: it states a demand and counts supporters, while a priority ranking blends many groups’ mobilization into a single list that looks like a consensus.

A second version says petitions already have a defined place in law and politics. The First Amendment protects “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”.⁠¹ Many states and countries tie petitions to formal consequences, such as a ballot measure or a government response. A new advisory tool with no legal consequence competes with petitions for attention while offering less.

Why the objection matters

The comparison matters for My Vote Forward because it tests whether the framework measures something new. If a ranking is just a set of parallel petitions, then the framework adds complexity without information. If it is different, the difference must be stated precisely so that results are not misread as either petitions or polls. See is this just a poll? for the other half of that comparison.

Defined terms

• Petition: a request to a public authority, supported by signatures, usually for a specific action.
• Popular initiative: a petition that, with enough valid signatures, places a proposal before voters. See initiative.
• Optional referendum: a petition that, with enough valid signatures, forces a public vote on a law already passed. See referendum.
• Ranking: an ordering of options by relative importance. See ranking.
• Denominator: the total number of participants against which a count is reported. A petition has no denominator of non-signers.

Evidence

Petitions take different forms with different consequences. The UK Parliament’s petitions site states that “If an e-petition receives 10,000 signatures, it will receive a response from the Government,” and “If it receives 100,000 signatures it may be debated in Parliament”.⁠² The Petitions Committee arranges debates and may decline, and “Petitions debates don’t end with a vote on whether to implement the request of the petition”.⁠² Only “British citizens and UK residents” may sign.⁠²

Swiss petitions can force votes. A federal popular initiative needs “the signatures of 100,000 voters” within 18 months, and an optional referendum needs “50,000 valid signatures” within 100 days of a law’s publication.⁠⁵ Those thresholds give petitions real power, and they also create incentives: in January 2026 the Swiss Federal Council reported that about 30,000 signatures for roughly twenty initiatives had been reported as suspected forgeries since October 2022, and that federal prosecutors had searched signature-collection companies.⁠⁶ The release does not state that any initiative qualified only because of forgery.⁠⁶

California’s initiative process shows how often petition efforts fall short. Between 1912 and July 1, 2025, 2,152 statewide initiatives were titled and summarized for circulation; 1,605 (74.72%) failed to qualify, and 401 (18.67%) qualified for the ballot.⁠⁷ The 2026 signature requirement for an initiative statute is 546,651.⁠⁸

The law treats petitions as public political speech. In Meyer v. Grant (1988), the Supreme Court unanimously held that Colorado’s ban on paying petition circulators violated the First Amendment, describing circulation as “core political speech”.⁠³ In Doe v. Reed (2010), the Court held that “Disclosure of referendum petitions does not as a general matter violate the First Amendment”.⁠⁴ A petition signature, in other words, can be public in a way that a ballot cannot.

How comparable systems have handled it

The comparison is clearest when the features are set side by side.

Competing interpretations

One interpretation holds that petitions are the more democratic instrument because anyone can start one, so agenda power is spread widely. A fixed priority list concentrates agenda power in whoever writes it.

A second interpretation holds that petitions measure intensity and organization rather than relative importance. A well-organized group can collect many signatures for a narrow demand, and nothing in the petition shows how that demand compares with others. A ranking forces tradeoffs: moving one subject up moves another down.

A third interpretation holds that the two are complements. Petitions let people raise new demands; a ranking shows how existing subjects compare. On this view, a priority framework should include a channel for proposing new subjects, which brings it closer to petitions. See proposals.

What the framework answers

My Vote Forward’s differences from petitions are design choices:

• Relative, not absolute. Participants rank subjects against each other, so results show tradeoffs rather than raw support. See priorities.
• Full distribution with a denominator. Releases report how all participants ranked every subject, not only the count for one. See published releases.
• Private individual input. Individual rankings are not public, unlike many petitions.
• Versioned list. The subject list is published and versioned, and changes are recorded.
• No legal trigger. Results do not force a response, debate, or vote.

Hypothetical example. A petition on parking collects 4,000 signatures. In the same month, 3,000 verified residents take part in a priority pilot, and parking ranks ninth of ten. Both facts are true: 4,000 people care enough to sign, and among the 3,000 pilot participants, most placed other subjects higher. Neither result overrides the other, and the release says so.

Where the objection still wins

The objection wins on mobilization. Rankings are as vulnerable as petitions to organized turnout: a group that mobilizes its members can move a subject up the list, and a voluntary ranking has no better claim to represent the public than a petition does. See can wealthy groups dominate?. The objection also wins on agenda power: anyone can start a petition, but the framework’s subject list is written by the operator. And it wins on consequences: some petitions trigger responses, debates, or votes, while the framework triggers nothing.

Unresolved questions

• Should participants be able to propose new subjects, petition-style, and what threshold would add a subject to the list?
• How should a release report a subject that is heavily mobilized by one group?
• Should the framework link to official petition and initiative processes where they exist?
• Could a priority release ever be designed to work alongside an official petition process rather than beside it?

Related

• Is this just a poll?
• Is this direct democracy?
• Initiative
• California initiatives
• Hard questions