RECOGNIZING A "REAL" PETITION

The legal definition of a Petition is:
"A written application to a governing body requesting an action be taken by the governing body."

This definition is incredibly important to know and understand because there are many who trick people out of their personal contact information by declaring what they are signing is a Petition when there is in fact no intent to use the signee's information to petition for an action.  This fraudulent behavior has left many people jaded towards signing Petitions and is in fact illegal in many States where such action is defined as fraud in which false pretense is used to obtain anything of value including personal information.

There are a few elements you can watch for to ensure you are not being tricked and you can present these elements to those who are skeptical to sign the Term Limits for US Congress Petition for the same reason.

1. Does the Petition specifically define "who" the Petition is intended to be submitted to? If there is no clearly defined intention of submitting the Petition to a governing body, it is NOT a legitimate Petition as defined by law.

2. Does the Petition request an action be taken by the governing body/authority defined in #1 above? A Petition, by legal definition, must ask a governing body/authority to perform an action. If no requested action is stated, it is NOT a legitimate Petition as defined by law.

The above 2 are the necessities to define a legal petition.

What you can also look for beyond the 2 above are qualifiers for the signee included in the petition.

Examples of this would be the beginning of our petition in which it states, "I the undersigned, being 18 years old or older and a legal resident of the state provided in this e-petition form"

With the defined intent of the Petition to be submitted to Legislators of a State, asking said Legislators to perform a specific action in their State, common sense requires qualifiers to be added to let the Legislators know the signee is both an adult and a resident of the State.

Stop and think about it. If in the Petition you are not stating you are an adult and a legal resident of the address you are supplying, why would the Legislator care that you signed?  You could just as easily be a 14 year old from another country rather than a constituent of the Legislator.

Keep these in mind. Mining for personal data, whether to be sold to others or simply to be used as a contact list to request donations from, is very common.

We at Term Limits for US Congress-PAC are the only organization I am currently aware of that is collecting Petition signatures with the intent of presenting the Petitions to State Legislators.