Petition, Signature, and Response Data from "We the People"

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) White House

Version:  View help for Version V3

Name File Type Size Last Modified
1st-quarter-2015-vintage-data.sql.zip application/zip 404.5 MB 02/17/2017 12:38:PM
1st-quarter-2016-vintage-data.sql.zip application/zip 412.5 MB 02/17/2017 12:24:PM
3rd-quarter-2016-vintage-data.sql.zip application/zip 373.3 MB 02/17/2017 12:08:PM
full_dataset_through_Jan_20_2021.sql text/x-sql 28.4 GB 01/24/2021 11:14:AM
petitions_created_after_August_29_2016.json application/json 413.7 KB 03/22/2017 08:15:AM

Project Citation: 

White House. Petition, Signature, and Response Data from “We the People.” Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2021-01-25. https://doi.org/10.3886/E100456V3

Project Description

Project Title:  View help for Project Title Petition, Signature, and Response Data from "We the People"
Summary:  View help for Summary On September 22, 2011, the White House launched "We the People" (petitions.whitehouse.gov), a site where people could create and sign petitions asking the president and his administration to do (or not do) various things. During the Obama administration, petitions that received over a certain number of signatures generally received a response from the White House. The Obama administration released bulk SQL dumps of the petition, signature, and response data periodically (generally quarterly). Three of those bulk SQL dumps are archived here.

The site remained live under the Trump administration, although the SQL dumps were no longer released. A project at Grinnell College collected data from the "We the People" API nightly and loaded it into a searchable online database (https://dasil.sites.grinnell.edu/political-science/we-the-people-data-explorer/). A bulk SQL dump of that database is also archived here. It contains essentially all petition, signature, and response data from the site's launch until it was discontinued by the Biden administration on January 20, 2021. Some data may be missing from the middle of the day on January 20, 2017. The data ends at approximately 1:45am EST on January 20, 2021.

Additional information about the data can be found here: https://petitions.trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/developers/get-code

Original Distribution URL:  View help for Original Distribution URL https://api.whitehouse.gov/v1/downloads/data.sql.zip

Scope of Project

Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 9/22/2011 – 10/1/2016
Collection Date(s):  View help for Collection Date(s) 9/22/2011 – 10/1/2016


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Published Versions

V3 [2021-01-25]

V2 [2017-03-22]

V1 [2017-02-17]

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This material is distributed exactly as it arrived from the data depositor. ICPSR has not checked or processed this material. Users should consult the investigator(s) if further information is desired.