How Many Signs are needed for a Petition to be Successful?

A petition needs to get 100% of its required signatures for it to be considered a success. The required actual percentage of signatures depends and there are many grounds to consider.

For example, if you belong to a small group with about 50 people only, it would be best to gather at least 51% or at least 26 people to sign the petition so that it can be considered as a successful petition. If you would not reach the 51% required signatures then your petition would be considered unsuccessful. It would be considered that the petition does not quantify the majority of people concerned and that the majority actually does not believe in the purpose of the petition.

Another example, if you need a petition where the people concerned are in terms of thousands already, you can gather a total of 5% for the petition to become a success. Of course it would be difficult to go around and gather 51% of these people considering that you’d be going after thousands of people. It is not plausible which is why the percentage requirement is much less.

The percentage of signatures being required for a petition varies and is quite subjective. You can’t just say you need 51% of the total population or 5% of the total population because your legislature may say otherwise. Make sure you consult first so you would have an idea what percentage you would need to achieve before you send the petition to the authorities to whom it is addressed to.

Once you already know what percentage is required for your petition, you must meet that 100% or more before you send it. So, if for example, you are required at least 5% of the total population as signatories, it would be even better if you could gather more than 5% so you can get more than 100% of the required signatories for the petition.

Always remember that with petitions, the more signatures you gather the better. Don’t just stick to the minimum percentage requirement because if you only have the capacity to gather even more then it would make your petition look a lot better. Of course it’s impossible to gather 100% of signatures especially if the population is big. For small groups though, gathering 100% of the population is possible but only when everyone believes in the purpose of the petition.

Each signatory must believe in the purpose of the petition and they should not just sign because they were told to do so. The petition must be valid because it’s a legal document. All the names and signatures on the petition entails that these people are true believers that if the petition would reach the authorities, it deserves an action. If the signatures presented are not real or these people signed without reasons, it is possible that the petition would be considered invalid. Make sure you won’t take the risk and you must not condone any invalid signatures or fakes especially with legal documents.