Warning: Online Petitions are NOT valid for Government

I want to warn people that online petitions are NOT legally valid for submitting protests to the government. I know there will be a lot of them going around about Prop 8 but the Government doesn't accept them because anyone can make up a bunch of names and sign a website. Plus they are all privately sponsored and often the websites reserve the right to refuse submissions arbitrarily. So the government doesn't even look at them. (You've probably come across the official petitions at protests or with people outside grocery stores looking for signatures - they require your full printed name, full home address, and legal signature.) So far there is no legally acceptable way to do online petitioning for the Govt. Maybe one day when they figure out how to do electronic voting...I just don't want people thinking that by signing those types of petitions that they are "having their say" and getting the word to the right politicians, because they are NOT and need to take the extra steps of signing legal petitions, getting one going themselves, or writing to their representatives to actually do so. - from my fabulous sister Michelle