RALEIGH — Petitions to secede from the federal government as a separate and sovereign entity are currently circulating in 42 states.

By Tuesday evening, 21,391 of North Carolina’s more than 9.6 million citizens had signed the petition introduced by Randy Dye of Pittsboro.

The petitions are available on the website http://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petitions. The website is a vehicle established by the Obama administration allow citizens to take their concerns directly to the White House.

If the petition, created on Nov. 9, gets 25,000 signatures within a month, the Obama administration will issue a formal response to it.

Texas has already surpassed the required threshold at 81,786 and growing. Louisiana also surpassed the threshold at 30,228 Monday.

Florida was less than 400 signatures away Tuesday evening at 24,684, Georgia has 34,753 signatures together between three petitions, Alabama has 22,602 and Tennessee has 21,830.

Nationwide, the petitions had 553,744 signatures Tuesday evening.