California launches probe after video shows petition gatherers offering money for signatures

So the billionaires are using their money to buy signatures? Like buying upvote bots, or perhaps likes, but these are the kind that keep class consciousness from the impoverished.

>At least one of the petitions seen in the video was for a tech-backed ballot measure to fight a proposed tax on billionaires. It’s funded by Building a Better California, a committee started by wealthy business leaders including Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who gave $20 million. Sergey Brin? The guy who spent a long weekend in order to claim [duel citizenship in New Zealand](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/google-billionaire-visited-new-zealand-while-the-countrys-border-was-closed/RZUI2KXZUCS4Q7L3X4J3HBHEPA/)? That Sergey Brin? The guy who gave us [MAHA Princess Nichole Shanahan](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/nicole-shanahan-rfk-jr-vice-president-beliefs-rcna153535)?

Crazy the amount of money big tech will spend to not pay taxes.

Isn’t that what Elon was doing?

But, it's ok for fElon Musk to offer "select voters" 1 million dollars?

The whole petition industry is real sketch. I worked for those slime balls for a bit

Up in Mass they have been doing fake petitions. They say it’s to put a hot tub in the cafeteria, but it’s really a new law making weed illegal again. F****** losers

From the article in AP News: >SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California election officials said Friday that they are investigating whether signature collectors in San Francisco illegally offered to pay people to sign ballot petitions using false names. >A video posted Monday on X shows a sign that says “Sign petition for $5” and a line of people waiting along the sidewalk. A woman sitting at a folding table appears to be instructing the name and address to use to fill out the petition. When the person recording asked what the petitions were for, the woman said, “Just sign it.”

I'm beginning to wonder if the existence of the ultra wealthy, and any system that creates them, is incompatible with democracy. No, that can't be right, the ultra wealthy promised me that's not true, surely they wouldn't lie. we just need to compromise with them a little more and they'll behave.

They started mailing individuals to collect the signatures one at a time. That's how much the billionaires are afraid of the possibility of a tax. They not only mailed me the signature form, they sent a flyer the day before announcing that they'd be sending it. I sent their pre-paid return envelope back totally empty...

There's a bunch on my University campus offering free food, drinks and coffee for signatures.

But when Musk does it, it's ok?

Couldnt you just lie and get the money

They've been violating federal and state spam laws sending me dozens of texts to sign their petitions, too. It's insane

About time someone checked that shady practice

The fact that they were cagey about what it was for really tells a lot huh? Who do we think?

Huh. those same guys are aggressively pushing a "transparency act" petition. The petition read like a load of BS and had a f*** ton of fear mongering statements. 

I dislike consipracy theories, but this seems far more likely a false flag / staged viral video type thing than an actual illegal collection of sigantures for a legit petition for the following reasons 1. petitions typically achieve jackshit - you'd need an absolutely vast vast number of sigantures to get any attention and even then they routinely get ignored 2. even if you wanted to, paying $5 per signature is a pretty f****** expensive way to go about this 3. you'd have literally hundreds if not thousands of witnesses 4. any old schmo on the street could film you doing this illegal act 5. it would be much cheaper and less risky to just fake a bunch of signatures using only a small group of insiders 6. since they are giving them alternative names and addresses to sign, anybody doing even the most rudimentary audit of the petition is going to spot check a few sigantures and they will come up as fake (if the people are completely fabricated thats obvious, if they *are* real with real addresses, then write to 500 people on the petition "did you sign this petition? if not, let us know etc etc - you'll ghet at least a few who will object) so I conclude this is far more likely to be some kind of bullshit false flag thing concocted by somebody who wants to discredit all petitions, or a specific petition by conjuring some fake signatures on that petition, then pointing them out to discrdit the whole thing They could do this very easily and cheaply by offering $5 for signatures, get a couple of hundred depserate real people to queue up to do it (as we see here), film your shots showing the queue and the people at the table, then once you have your footage, pack up the whole thing paying out probably $100 or less in actual money for the signatures. maybe even the 2-3 people at the table wouldn't need to be in on it - they might be genuinly hired to collect signatures and pay the people in the queue. and my final thing that I find odd: notice also how the guy in the video goes straight to the front of the queue, gets all the information very clearly whilst recording, and nobody at the table or in the queue says jack shit to him about joining the queue - you'd expect at least somebody to shout "hey buddy wait your turn! I've been here for ages. get to the back of the queue!"

Do they have to cheat and steal at every thing they do? Yes, they do.

One more proof why I called those techbros... Backstabbing MF Techbros... but unfortunately some of them still pulling strings at Democratic Party so that needs to be stopped first.