Online petitions, forwarded by social media are a significant part of the online social media landscape and a powerful force for raising awareness of issues and showing decision makers the weight of public feeling about things.

However, there is one very great limitation to these petitions, which should not be there in this day and age. Occasionally one comes across my desk that a really disagree with, and would like to register that disagreement. For example "Prime Minister Stephen Harper, please change the law so I can kill my 101 Dalmatian puppies , so I can make a nice fur coat". Some leave me feeling quite angry.

However, the most that I can do is NOTHING! I feel like I am being steamrollered - I have been asked to give my opinion on an issue, but not been able to register it, and I can only watch as signatures on an issue that I strongly disagree with pile up.

It is quite possible that a petition that has 100,000 signatures, for what seems to me a wrong and unjust cause.

However, it might have had 200,000 people against, but these people have not had a voice, they have been silenced, gagged (unconsciously) by the very organisations that claim to empower ordinary people and give them a platform! It creates a feeling of passivity and powerlessness, quite the opposite of what the petition organisations intended.

Obviously it is possible to start an opposing petition, but that seems a very poor option, duplication and inefficiency, and you’d end up with a proliferation of petitions on the same subject, which is plainly ridiculous, and a nightmare to manage – you need all the signatures on one subject in one place. And not all have the will or education or capability to start an online petition  - and it's more effort than voting – do we want to make that a barrier to their being counted?

It would seem to be an obvious thing to add an option to disagree with the petition, to sign to that effect. Possibly even an option to abstain to say that you don't really care about the issue. With the technology available, this should be an inexpensive thing to implement, and once programmed, has almost no ongoing cost. It may be that there are subjects that are personal and should stay as they are, but in most cases the change would make things better.

At one stroke a whole lot more people can make their voices heard. As a result petitions will be a more democratic vehicle, and will be given a greater legitimacy and strength, knowing that if there are 100,000 signatures for and 10 against, no abstentions, that the petition is a true barometer of popular feeling. Petitions can no longer as easily be dismissed as something that 100,000 loonies had a bee in their bonnet about.

Causes that really matter will receive more attention and discussion, as a competitive element comes into play, revitalising the petition from a slightly higher tech version of the old fashioned scruffy bits of paper on a clipboard to a more dynamic and democratic tool.

Come on, online petition organisations, give all people more of a voice!

(On a separate note, it might be nice for the organisations who organise online petitions to see what it is like to be on the receiving end – let’s see if they can take what they help to dish out.)