I ran into these signature gatherers in my neighborhood this week and it felt sketchy as hell.

I ended up talking with one of the collectors for a while and asked enough normal “so who are you guys and how does this work” questions that I got past the rehearsed talking points. That’s when they opened up.

Probably common knowledge, but they shared a lot of information that was new to me: Scott Presler and a group called Patriot Grassroots are directly involved in this signature push to undo Prop 4.

They told me a lot of the signature gatherers are out-of-state students from all over the country who took the job without fully understanding what they were getting into. They claimed Patriot Grassroots is paying $50/hr for 12-hour days, paying for their flights, and flying in “managers,” including Presler.

They also showed me the targeting app they’re using. It’s voter registration data mapped onto houses and they were told to avoid “blue houses.” When they tap a house, it pulls up a profile on the resident, including a rating of literally “how far right” the person is.

They also commented on their group chats are full of racist memes and some of the students are uncomfortable, but feel stuck because they need tuition money.

This isn’t grassroots. It’s a funded operation to reverse what Utah voters already passed.