I have returned to the Schlosberg Crowdfunder and both of the Petitions several times over the past few days. I noted in my previous post that “‘Demand a full independent inquiry into the BBC’s coverage of the 2019 General Election’ Richard House’s Petition on Change.org appears to have stalled below its modest target of 7000 votes.” This is where these Fund Raising and Petitions efforts stand and at last glance:
Schlosberg Crowdfunding now stands at £15,247 raised of £25,000 target with 648 supporters https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/challenge-bbc-bias
John Hans Petition: “Stop the anti-Corbyn bias on the BBC” 23,451 have signed. Let’s get to 25,000!
Richard House Petition: “Demand a full independent inquiry into the BBC’s coverage of the 2019 General Election” 5,915 have signed. Let’s get to 7,500!
I have just now discovered two more Petitions that are related to our cause also on Change .org
Alex Webb Petition: “Recount the Postal Votes GE 2019” – 7,427 have signed. Let’s get to 7,500!
John Clayton Petition: “Please investigate why legitimate voters were turned away in the 2019 general election.” 682 have signed. Let’s get to 1,000!
Although the Richard House petition has been creeping up slowly from the mid 5000s, I would have expected it to get a lot more traffic after teaming up with the more heavily signed John Hans petition, but progress is still slow. This has made me wonder if more cannot be done at the petition site to help promote all of these closely related petitions together on one page so that they can all get noticed and pick up more signatures?
Getting a petition noticed initially is an extremely tough task, but it is a terrific way to get crucial information out there that the public might be searching for online to answer growing concerns over the legitimacy of the recent General Election vote and how the results are still being misinterpreted by the BBC and print media. The more people sign the petition the higher it climbs in a Google search where, in reality, very few people move on to check out page two. Google is probably still the most popular search engine, that’s now sadly becoming heavily manipulated for commercial and political ends. Money makes the world go around….
If people are doing a Google search for “Vote Rigging” they are currently more easily taken in the wrong direction to reports of one of the rare cases of personating that is being used by the government to justify their “sledge hammer to crack a nut” attack on voting rights. This helps fuel the Tory obsession with the need to introduce a voter ID requirement that is essentially a way to disenfranchise over three million predominantly poor and minority voters who will primarily vote Labour.
The two newly discovered petitions had been up for a month without my finding them, but when I went to sign I got a red flag message: “There was an error submitting your signature.” I will have to check out why; please tell us if you have the same experience.
I remain highly suspicious of behind the scenes manoeuvring over a similar petition that was posted on 38 Degrees that disappeared after rapidly gaining over 6000 signatures in the first 24 hours. I have raised this issue in previous posts encouraging other people to call or email 38 Degrees with an inquiry. Has anyone had any luck? I have now called 38 Degrees several times to discover why the petition was taken down. I have been told that “someone in the petitions team will get back to me” but, so far this has not transpired. I have now waited over a week with no word from them on what was flagged up as an urgent issue.
By contrast the longest I have waited for a reply from our toothless watchdog the Electoral Commission is three working days. If you have ever dealt with any public watchdog you will realize this was a remarkably rapid response from the EC. I am getting back in touch with them today. Perhaps we can help make this toothless watchdog more than just a dog by demanding the expansion of their remit. I will keep you all posted…