that have received enough signatures but have not received responses." As of 16 October 2016, 323 White House petitions have met their signature thresholds. The White House has responded to 321 of them (99%) with an average response time of 117 days. Average waiting time for unanswered petitions was 23 days, according to whpetitions.info. The Obama White House faced criticism for the choice of administration official selected to answer petitions regarding the legalization of marijuana. Gil Kerlikowske, the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, was chosen to craft the administration's response. The criticism stemmed from the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 1998, which legally required that the Director oppose all attempts to legalize the use of illicit drugs in any form. Other complaints of We the People focused on its technical glitches, democratic rationale, and political dilemmas. There was criticism about the willingness of the administration to answer petitions that meet the threshold for response, when several qualifying petitions have been unanswered for months or years. In addition, the digital divide means that poor communities may have had difficulty participating equally in We The People. During the first weeks of the presidency of Donald Trump, The Independent and The A.V. Club reported that many popular petitions did not appear to be receiving any signatures. Additionally, certain URLs to the petitions led to error pages. Macon Phillips, the man behind We the People, told BuzzFeed News that the issue stemmed from issues with its cache. He also thought that Trump's administration "is still trying to get their heads around how it works". Discontinuation On January 20, 2021, the day the Inauguration of Joe Biden took place, the website's address started redirecting to the White House's main web address. First reported by the Ron Paul Institute, the White House declined comment when a reporter from Newsweek asked about the apparent discontinuation of the website. See also UK Parliament petitions website Right to petition in the United States References External links Online petitions Presidency of the United States Government-owned websites of the United States Public consultations Free software Public-domain software with source code Computer-related introductions in 2011