Caught in Broad Daylight: Ballot Initiative Signature-Gatherers in California Paying For Signatures – Backed by Billionaire PAC

On Monday, street videographer JJ Smith captured on camera what appears to be election crimes in San Francisco, California.  In broad daylight.

The video shows a line of people at the corner of 6th Street and Mission Street in the SoMa neighborhood, soliciting signatures on Monday afternoon.

The clip begins with Smith walking up on the line with a sign that reads, “Can you read & Write?  Sign Petition for $5.”

Smith asks a man in the line, “What’s the line for?”  He responds that they’re “giving five bucks to sign a petition.”

When Smith asks the two women seated at the table, “I get $5 too?”  She replies, “Yeah.”

“What is it?” he asks.

The woman responds, “Just sign it.”

The woman can then be seen highlighting a paper for another woman in the line but off camera.

“First name is going to be Carol, last name Sanderson.  This is the address right here.  This is the city, Avila Beach, and this is the zip code,” she tells the woman.  As the woman takes the paper and pen to sign it, the worker says, “So remember, first name is ‘Carol'”.

Mar09 2026 1:54pm Location
6th & Mission
These people are paying people $5 dollars to sign a ballot, but as you watch the video their telling them what name to sign (which is someone else name) and what address to write. Seems kind of suspicious to me. Why not sign your own… pic.twitter.com/GIHdLHaHCl

— jj smith (@war24182236) March 9, 2026

In a news interview with KCRA 3 News, Smith said he sat there for two hours and watched hundreds of people come and go.

According to Laura Powell, a civil liberties attorney on X, the video “appears to show signature gatherers for ballot initiatives sponsored by Building a Better California.”

“Building a Better California is an advocacy group with an associated political action committee (PAC) founded with $35 million from Google co-founder Sergey Brin, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and numerous other billionaires,” according to InfluenceWatch.org.

“The group is widely speculated to have formed to combat a proposed wealth tax on billionaires in California, although as of February 2026, Building a Better California was officially neutral on the issue,” states InfluenceWatch.org.

Powell wrote that, “[A] Spokesperson for Building a Better California Abby Lunardi told me via email [that] they were aware of the video and have contacted the signature-gathering agency to reject any petitions from the circulator in the video.  She emphasized, ‘We do not tolerate this or any type of fraudulent activity in the signature-gathering process.'”

Regarding the spokesperson, Lunardi, InfluenceWatch.org describes her as “the chief marketing officer of Truity, a personality and career testing service” and notes that she previously worked for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative as the chief communications and brand officer.  The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is infamous for injecting over $400 million into the 2020 Election.

NEW

This video appears to show signature gatherers for ballot initiatives sponsored by Building a Better California—a recently formed political group bankrolled by prominent tech billionaires—offering homeless people $5 cash to sign petitions, using names other than their… https://t.co/2fdZ44ebCc

— Laura Powell (@LauraPowellEsq) March 10, 2026

 

 

Ashley Zavala of KCRA 3 News reported on Smith’s video and confirmed the signature-gatherers were doing so for an initiative that is “backed by billionaires fighting a proposed wealth tax.”

Another campaign they were gathering for was a proposed retirement and personal savings protection act.  Zavala said all three campaigns involved acknowledged their petitions were being carried by these signature-gatherers.

Zavala said campaigns hire firms to gather signatures for anywhere between $15-17 per signature; however, she notes that they still don’t know why those signature-gatherers have voter information or where the extra money came from to pay the people to sign.

According to KCRA 3, those campaigns are:

• Building a Better California
• Californians For a More Transparent and Effective Government
• a campaign for the Retirement and Personal Savings Protection Act

Update:
CA Secretary of State is investigating possible petition fraud.@war24182236 posted the video pointing it out in SF. He told me this isn’t the first time he’s seen this in the area.

Three campaigns acknowledged the circulators in video were carrying their petitions. pic.twitter.com/jFmsU1xAEl

— Ashley Zavala (@ZavalaA) March 11, 2026

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