Eighteen OTRS however, is a heck-of-a-lot less than 100,000 signatures.
I disagree. 100,000 signatures, many anonymous and many of the others duplicates is not very impressive - it means a reasonably large number of people (but much less than 100k) care enough about the cause to click a button. 18 OTRS emails means 18 people feel strongly enough to actually take the time to write an email.