In early 2013 the White House released an API for their We The People petition site. In the spring they announced the National Day of Civic Hacking, set for June 1, 2013, and to celebrate were accepting applications to attend a hackathon on the grounds of the White House. I submitted a proposal for a WordPress plugin to embed petitions via shortcodes and widgets. To my surprise my plugin was approved and I was invited to attend the hackathon in Washington D.C. The We The People WordPress plugin was released from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, on the grounds of the White House, during the hackathon.
The first version of the API was read-only but at the time of this writing the write API is in a closed beta. Once the write API is available the plugin will be upgraded to allow visitors to sign petitions without having to go through the We The People site. My ultimate goal for the plugin is enabling a blogger who is passionate about an issue to write a post (or series of posts) about their issue, embed the official petition, and let readers have a spirited conversation in the comments and sign the petition all from the same page.
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