Submission Process and Guidelines
How to submit a petition
- Start a petition
- Follow the Guidelines for Petitions below to draft your petition - it helps to have a clear objective, and to know which agency you would like to submit it to. You will be given a private link you can use to edit your petition, or share with endorsers. Remember, your name will be publicly visible on the petition once it is published.
- Formalise it with 3 endorsers
- Get 3 people to back your petition as endorsers. They will need to sign non-anonymously, and their names will also appear on the petition once it is published. A petition can't be edited once it has at least one endorser, so it helps to have a final version ready before you share it.
- Publish your petition
- Your petition will automatically be published and publicly visible on the PetitionsSG platform once it has 3 endorsers.
- Gather signatures
- Once published, a petition is ready for public support - you will need to gather 10,000 signatures before it closes in 180 days. Signatories will need to log in via Singpass before they can sign, but can choose to sign anonymously.
Petitions that reach 10,000 signatures will submitted to the relevant ministry within 30 days for their consideration, and they will have 90 days to respond to it.
Petitions that do not reach 10,000 signatures within 180 days, as well as petitions that are rejected because they received significant reports against them, will be stored in an archive that is available for public discourse.
Guidelines
These guidelines are meant to help petitioners draft an effective petition, so the relevant ministry can understand the issue at hand, and decide how best to respond to it.
Following these guidelines does not guarantee that the petition's cause will necessarily be actioned or implemented by a ministry.
Petitions must:
- Be written in English
- Use respectful language
- Be serious in intent, and focus on a solution
- Not include statements that cannot be authenticated, such as defamatory information or unfounded allegations
- As a reminder, the petitioner's and endorsers' names will be visible on a petition once it is published.
Petitions should not:
- Attack, criticise, or negatively focus on an individual or group of people because of characteristics such as their age, disability, ethnic identity, gender, medical condition, nationality, race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation
- Be an advertisement, spam, or promote a specific product or service
- Be a duplicate of an existing petition that is already open
- Cause personal distress or loss to a member of the public; this includes petitions that could cause grief or shock to a member of the public without their consent
- Contain swearing or other offensive language
- Include statements that cannot be authenticated, such as defamatory information, or unfounded allegations
- Name individual officials of public or private bodies, unless they are senior managers
The PetitionsSG platform is designed to give the public a way to call for meaningful change, and is built on a foundation of trust, transparency, and accountability. If you are a petitioner or an endorser, consider how you frame your cause so it can be understood by the public, as well as the relevant ministry.
While there is no active moderation or approval process, if a petition gathers significant reports against it, a committee will convene to deliberate whether to reject the petition based on the petition guidelines. All rejected petitions will still be publicly accessible on PetitionsSG with the reason for rejection.
