UPDATE 11/14/12: Iowa and Illinois are now among the states with petitions on the White House website seeking to secede from the U.S.
Petitions were visible for 47 states as of 3 p.m. Wednesday, November 14. Petitions must have at least 150 signatures before they are publicly visible.
Petitions posted for at least seven states had enough signatures by then to meet the minimum requirement of 25,000 signatures, which the site says will get a response from the administration. They are Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee.
Two of the petitions called for allowing the states of Alaska and Oregon to be allowed to vote to decide whether or not to secede.
Duplicate petitions were posted for some states, including Illinois.
By Wednesday afternoon, a petition visible for Iowa to be allowed to secede had more than 2,400 signatures. Two petitions were visible for Illinois; one had nearly 3,100 signatures and the other had more than 3,700.
The petitions are online and available to the public – click here.
UPDATE 11/13/12: A petition asking to allow Texas to secede from the U.S. was the first of several similar petitions to pass the mark needed to get a response from the administration.
Petitions on the White House website which get at least 25,000 signatures within 30 days will get a response from the government. The Texas petition had more than 66,000 signatures as of mid-morning Tuesday, November 13.
A petition for similar action for Tennessee had more than 18,000 signatures and Florida’s petition had more than 19,000 signatures. Two petitions created for Colorado each had more than 13,000 signatures.
A petition demanding a recount of the election had more than 36,000 signatures.
Original story from November 12, 2012:
Residents of at least 21 states followed the presidential election by starting petitions to secede from the United States of America.
Thousands of people have signed the online petitions on the White House website. The petitions are online and available to the public – click here.
The president would have to approve such a measure.
Petitioners ask the administration to “Peacefully grant the state (state name here) to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government.”
The petitions cite the Declaration of Independence, stating in part, “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and institute new Government…”
As of late Monday morning, November 12, 2012, there were petitions posted for residents of 21 states. Most had been created in the three previous days.
When a petition gets 150 signatures within 30 days, it is searchable on the White House website, whitehouse.gov. To require a response, the petition must reach 25,000 signatures within 30 days.
