Government e-petition site crashes as thousands try to sign petitions
The Government e-petition website crashed yesterday, as thousands tried to sign petitions ranging from bringing back the death penalty to legalising cannabis.
The website, which was announced last week, went live with a list of petitions on Thursday morning, but crashed multiple times as the public tried to sign them.
It has been reported that there were more than 1,000 unique visits a minute, which is the equivalent of 1.5 million visits for the day.
Commons Leader Sir George Young had said that e-petitions with over 10,000 signatures could get the chance to be debated on in the House of Commons.
Some petitions include: ‘Keep Formula 1 Free To Air in the UK’, which had 5704 signatures at time of writing; ‘Restore Capital Punishment’, which had 5,137; and ‘Petition to retain the ban on Capital Punishment’, which had 9,180 signatures.