WASHINGTON, June 9 (UPI) -- More than one million signatures have been gathered on a group of online petitions this week in an attempt to oust the judge in the Stanford University rape case.
Judge Aaron Persky issued what's been widely viewed as a lenient sentence in the Brock Turner rape case. Persky sentenced the white, upper class former Stanford University athlete to a six-month sentence for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman.
At least 900,000 signatures were gathered on the petition for change.org. Other petitions at moveon.org and the White House's We the People site have each garnered about 100,000 signatures.
The online petitions' legal effectiveness -- in what is sometimes called "clicktivism" -- is not known, but change.org states it is "an effort to force Impeachment hearings for Judge Perksy By the California Assembly. It is not a recall effort." The site said the petition would also be delivered to various members of the U.S. House or Representatives and California Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.
The Moveon.org site's petition implies the document would be delivered to the Committee on Judicial Perfromance.
The We The People petition, on the Whitehouse.gov site, claims it will "ask the federal government to call on congress to act" on the issue.
