Your petition Fred, isn't worth bum paper!
Petition for second EU referendum may have been manipulated
Data shows people from countries including Iceland and Tunisia backed petition that should be signed only by Britons and UK residents
Nicola Slawson
@nicola_slawson
Sunday 26 June 2016 14.18 BST
A petition calling for a second EU referendum which has gained more than 3 million signatures is under investigation by parliamentary authorities.
The House of Commons petitions committee has confirmed that 77,000 signatures, which were added fraudulently, have been removed. A tweet by the committee said that it would continue to monitor the petition for suspicious activity.
The request for another referendum on the parliament’s official petitions website should have been signed only by British citizens and UK residents.
However, the petition’s data showed signatories from countries around the world, including Iceland, the Cayman Islands and Tunisia, and in some cases there are more signatures than total population.
Despite Vatican City, a tiny city state, having a total population of just 800, over 39,000 residents of Vatican City appeared to have signed the petition.
Helen Jones, the chair of the petitions committee, said that those signatures discovered to be fake would be “removed” and said such fraud “undermines the process of parliamentary democracy”.
She said: “The Government Digital Service are taking action to investigate and, where necessary, remove fraudulent signatures. People adding fraudulent signatures to this petition should know that they undermine the cause they pretend to support.
“It is clear that this petition is very important to a substantial number of people. The petitions committee will be considering the petition at its meeting next week, and will decide whether or not to schedule a debate on it.”
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/26/petition-for-second-eu-referendum-may-have-been-manipulated