White House Unveils Open Source API to View Petition Data

The White House has developed a new application programming interface intended to help users view data on petitions holding more than 150 signatures and posted on the “We the People” site.

Next on the White House’s agenda is an API designed to help individuals collect and submit signatures on their own platforms and not having to direct users to We the People.

Leigh Heyman, White House director of new media technologies, announced the data-viewing API in a blog post Wednesday.

Heyman said the White House also aims to build a new signature process for the online petitions and decouple the application’s presentation and data layers.

Some features of early API versions Heyman describes include maps displaying geographic support for several petitions, time-lapse visualizations of zip codes where citizens are signing petitions.

Other map displays included a thermometer showing progress toward the 150-signature mark.

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