HackTheSystem
Language

The legislative arm

HackTheLaw

If the rules are rigged, complaining doesn't change them. Writing new ones does.

In preparation

Country Spain United States

The goal

Change the rules of the game structurally. Not asking a favour of those in charge: proposing the actual text we want passed, and gathering enough people behind it that it cannot be ignored.

Two campaigns, two roads

Each thing is decided where it is decided. How income is shared in the face of automation is settled in Brussels; housing, in Madrid. That isn't our preference: it's where the power to change it actually sits.

CampaignDecided inHow you signFrom when
Universal Basic IncomeEuropean UnionOnline, in the Commission's official system4 January 2027
Housing Is Not an AssetSpainIn the street, before an accredited officerNo date yet

They are two separate signatures. Signing one does not sign the other, and each is asked for in its own time. We spell that out because blurring it would be exactly the kind of confusion this platform claims to fight.

Campaign 1 · Europe

Universal Basic Income

Artificial intelligence is going to change work faster than any social protection system is ready for. And if income is distributed through employment, something has to change before employment does.

This one isn't ours: it already exists, and you'll be able to sign it on 4 January 2027.

On 7 July 2026 the European Commission registered a European Citizens' Initiative called Introduction of Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) throughout the EU. Its organisers put it like this, in their own words: "with the rapid developments in artificial intelligence and robotics, there is an urgent need to decouple our livelihoods from the ability to sell our labour power, as we will soon have a situation where there are not enough jobs for us".

We are not going to launch another one just like it. Two initiatives on the same subject split the signatures and both fail. What we're going to do is push this one — which is exactly what the manifesto says we do: find the breaking point that already exists and give it the force it lacks.

Why it needs more of us this time

There have been two attempts before, in 2013 and in 2020. Both were registered without trouble. Both failed on signatures: the second gathered around 285,000 out of a million, across 28 countries. Seven out of every ten signatures never arrived.

The obstacle here isn't legal, it's people. Spain's own threshold is about 45,750 signatures, which is entirely reachable. The million is the hard part, and that's why every country counts.

What you can do now

  • Put 4 January 2027 in your calendar. That's the day collection opens, and every signature in the first month counts double in visibility.
  • Talk about it before then. The months left are the only margin we have to make sure someone is waiting that day.
  • If you organise or belong to a group, write to info@hackthesystem.eu.

Campaign 2 · Spain

Housing Is Not an Asset

A draft law to stop residential housing being treated as a financial product. The title is the argument: living somewhere is a right, not an investment position.

Careful: signing a petition doesn't take a law to parliament

There is a trap here that almost everyone falls into, and we would rather explain it before asking you for anything. They are two different things, and both are needed:

Backing itSigning the initiative
What it isSaying you agreeThe signature with legal force
What you giveName and emailName, ID number and electoral municipality, before an accredited officer
What it doesMeasures support, makes noise, gathers peopleForces parliament to debate it

Popular Legislative Initiative: 500,000 signatures

It is the instrument the Spanish Constitution puts in ordinary hands to take a law to parliament without going through any political party. And it has a concrete price:

Signatures needed500,000, from people entitled to vote
Deadline9 months from the day parliament accepts it
What signers giveName, ID number and the municipality where they are registered to vote
Where you signIn the street, before an accredited officer. Also online with ID verification
What it achievesParliament is obliged to debate it

Half a million signatures collected by hand is a lot. That is why we say it up front rather than in the small print: this isn't won with a click, it's won with people in the street.

We're missing the hardest part, and we'd rather say so here

Collecting signatures in the street requires accredited officers: people who can witness that the signer is who they say they are. Without a network of them across the country, there is no campaign.

Any citizen in full possession of their civil and political rights, with no criminal record, can be accredited before their Provincial Electoral Board as a signature officer. You don't need to be a notary, nobody charges and nobody pays.

It is the piece that makes collecting half a million signatures possible without money, and the only thing on this page that can start tomorrow. If you're in, write to info@hackthesystem.eu.

What's missing before it launches

We say so here because we would rather be late than be wrong.

  • A promoting committee, and citizens willing to be accredited as signature officers. Both are people, not paperwork.
  • The actual text: what exactly is prohibited and for whom, in legal terms rather than slogans. Reviewed by a lawyer.
  • Supporting data: every figure with its public source and date. Not one we cannot link.
  • Alliances: tenants' unions and housing groups have been doing this for years. We need to decide whether we go with them.
  • A signature target and a deadline.

What we won't do: ask you for a click while telling you it goes to parliament when it doesn't. When the official signature stage comes, we'll say so, and explain what data it asks for and who holds it.