I think in order to succeed, they need to take responsibility for more than just the petition. Measuring people's basic feelings about issues is just the first

I think in order to succeed, they need to take responsibility for more than just the petition. Measuring people's basic feelings about issues is just the first step in the process. They need to nurture the entire discussion, through debate with counter-arguments, policy formation, public debate of policy, balancing of priorities against other issues, and building a legislative caucus. If they can move ideas through all of those stages, they can usher them into law. But just aggregating petitions is like asking 100,000 people what their dream house is and then claiming that you've done your part and now politicians need to solve the housing crisis.