PolitiCap just wired a second act onto the civic market. A poll is no longer only a score on the tape. If enough registered members vote, the desk can promote it into a petition — a dated ask, aimed at a named person, and listed where anyone can read it.
That is the point of voter participation here. Crowd attention already moves virtual stakes on a politician ticker. The poll/petition path turns the same crowd into a civic signal you can send somewhere that is not a comment thread.
A poll is a vote picture, not a ballot
Frontpage polls sit in two columns. You pick a line. Guests can vote. Members can vote. The share card looks like a ballot — fake VOTE buttons on a wide picture — but clicking it only opens the poll page. It does not cast anything. The real vote happens on the site, under the usual header, ads, and cookie bar.
Example already live: the dual-IPO preference between Elon Musk (MUSKE) and Meng Wanzhou (MENGW). Share the poll URL, not the article, if you want that vote picture on X or LinkedIn.
Only registered members count toward a petition
Anyone can tap a poll. Only logged-in members move the petition meter. The default threshold is 100 registered-user votes. The desk can set a different number when a poll is placed. Guests still show up in the public split. They do not unlock the next step.
Why the gate? A petition that claims to speak for the civic market needs more than a burst of anonymous IPs. Membership is the cheap sybil check we already have — the same account that holds dibs (virtual DutchBud credits) and a trust level. It is not a national ID. It is enough to say: these votes belong to people who bothered to sign up.
Threshold hit: the desk is asked to promote
When the registered count first crosses the line, PolitiCap mails the desk a single link: Promote poll to petition. The poll does not jump onto the Petitions board by itself. Someone has to name the recipient and pick a complete-by date.
On that form you say who the petition is sent to — name, optional email, optional office — and the day it should be done. Title and statement start from the poll question and blurb, plus the registered-vote count. After save, the petition is open and public.
Where petitions live
Open and completed petitions sit at politicap.eu/petitions/. The primary menu now has a Petitions item next to Tickers. A petition page shows the ask, the addressee, the deadline, and a link back to the source poll when there is one.
After the complete-by date the listing marks itself completed. That is a calendar fact, not an automated letter to a ministry. Sending the pack to the named office is still a human act.
My Account is the workshop
Opening a petition is desk-only. Members vote. The desk names the recipient and the date — from the promote mail, or from the admin Petitions tab on My Account. There is no public “start a petition” form.
This is still a game layer on a Politi Market Cap board. Dibs stay closed-loop play credits. There is no cash-out. A petition is an accountability signal, not a lawsuit and not a government portal.
What this is for
Direct democracy, on PolitiCap, is not a slogan at the top of the homepage. It is a short machine: attention → registered vote → named ask → public deadline. If the crowd will not show up as members, the poll stays a poll. If they will, the desk can put a date on it and hang it on the board.
Use the polls. If a question hardens, ask the desk to set a threshold you can actually hit. Then watch the Petitions page. That is the civic market doing something besides repricing a ticker.
If the count never lands
Most polls will stay polls. That is fine. The civic market is allowed to shrug. No mail goes out. No row appears on Petitions. The question can still sit on the frontpage until the desk retires it, and members can still argue the split in dibs on the related ticker.
New accounts still get the usual welcome: 1 000 dibs on DutchBud when you sign in through PolitiCap. Those play credits do not buy a petition. They buy time on the virtual floor. The petition path is separate — registered votes first, then a named addressee.
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