President Barack Obama’s deputies have quadrupled the number of signatures that petitioners on the administration’s “We the People” website must collect to get an official response from the White House, following a series of popular, provocative and disrespectful signature drives by his critics.

Some of the petitions sought approval for states to secede after Obama’s re-election, while others called on the White House to disavow executive orders that restrict gun rights, or to deport CNN’s British-born, progressive host Piers Morgan.

“Starting today, as we move into a second term, petitions must receive 100,000 signatures in 30 days in order to receive an official response from the Obama Administration,” said an early evening Jan. 15 statement from Macon Phillips, the White House’s digital strategy director.

“This new threshold applies only to petitions created from this point forward and is not retroactively applied to ones that already exist.”

Phillips claimed the increased threshold is a response to the increasing popularity of the site. (RELATED: White House delivers official response to petition requesting construction of “Death Star”)

“That ‘good problem’ is only getting better, so we’re making another adjustment to ensure we’re able to continue to give the most popular ideas the time they deserve. … It’s wonderful to see so many people using We the People to add their voices to important policy debates here in Washington and bring attention to issues that might not get the attention they deserve.”

When the administration first established the petition system in September 2011, Obama’s aides promised that any petition with 5,000 signatures would receive a formal written response from White House officials. That threshold was raised to 25,000 for 2012.

The new 100,000-signature threshold follows a series of provocative, awkward or embarrassing petitions, some of which attracted enough signatures to meet the threshold set by Obama for getting a formal White House response.

Usage of the petition site has spiked since the election, partly because more than 600,000 people have signed various secession petitions. (RELATED: Secession petitions deluge White House website)

“In the first 10 months of 2012, it took an average of 18 days for a new petition to cross the 25,000-signature threshold,” said Macon’s statement. “In the last two months of the year, that average time was cut in half to just 9 days, and most petitions that crossed the threshold collected 25,000 signatures within five days of their creation.”

Six out of 10 petitions that met the 25,000 threshold passed in November and December, said Macon.

Progressives also used the petition process to call for curbs on gun rights and other left-of-center priorities, and to exclude a Christian minister from Obama’s second inauguration. (RELATED VIDEO — Lawrence O’Donnell: Get rid of the Bible on Inauguration Day)

The minister, Louie Giglio, has criticized the ideology of gas lobbies, and championed child-centered traditional marriage. That petition succeeded, and Obama removed Giglio from Inauguration Day ceremonies.

Many petitions on the site, however, are intended simply to be amusing. (RELATED: Top 10 most ridiculous White House petitions)

One called on the White House to build a “Death Star” planet-destroying spaceship. Another asked that “Congressman Ron Paul should be allowed to add his signature to the Original Constitution. He, more than any other public servant since it’s inception- has championed it, strived to uphold it, and reprimanded those who have not.”

A least one petition was a covert lobbying campaign, and included hundreds of computer-generated fake names.

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