Which U.S. ballot measures or campaigns have publicly reported payments to Crowds on Demand?

Checked on January 27, 2026
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Executive summary

Public records and reporting cited in the available sources identify a single ballot campaign that has publicly reported payments to Crowds on Demand: the 2014 "Six Californias" initiative committee, according to compiled reporting summarized on Wikipedia [1]. The public record beyond that instance is thin in the provided sources, and those limits shape this conclusion [1].

1. The lone, documented campaign: Six Californias — what the record says

Investigative records assembled in secondary reporting show that the only ballot campaign publicly recorded as having paid Crowds on Demand was the Six Californias initiative, a high-profile 2014 effort to divide California into six states, and that payment appears in public filings tied to that campaign [1]. The Wikipedia summary — itself drawing on public-record reporting compiled elsewhere — explicitly states "Public records identified only one campaign, for the Six Californias, had paid Crowds on Demand" [1], and that is the sole explicit campaign-level disclosure cited across the provided search results.

2. Why this single entry matters, and what it does not prove

That a single campaign appears in the public record matters because it confirms Crowds on Demand has been hired by organized political efforts tied to ballot questions — not only by private publicity or corporate clients — but the presence of one disclosed payment does not prove broader, systematic use of the firm across multiple ballot campaigns [1]. The publicly cited material does not provide a comprehensive industry ledger; Wikipedia's summary of public records identifies one campaign but does not claim exhaustive national disclosure, so the absence of other named ballot initiatives in these sources should be interpreted as a limitation of the available reporting rather than definitive proof that no other campaigns ever paid the firm [1].

3. Reporting context and competing narratives about Crowds on Demand

Crowds on Demand has drawn attention as a firm that supplies actors and staged participants to create impressions at events, and media coverage has connected the company to various political and corporate clients, including controversy over fabricated advocacy groups and local influence operations [1]. The Wikipedia-derived reporting cites examples such as projects in Dallas and New Orleans and links to broader concerns about "astroturfing" and deception in public affairs [1]. Those examples establish a pattern of contentious use cases, but among the provided sources only the Six Californias ballot committee is cited as a public-record payer for a ballot campaign [1].

4. Transparency gaps in ballot-measure spending and public records

Ballot-measure finance disclosure systems vary by state and jurisdiction, and centralized trackers like OpenSecrets and Ballotpedia collect and summarize campaign money but face limits when local reporting or committee practices obscure line-item payments to vendors [2] [3]. The Brennan Center and allied analyses highlight that ballot measures drew substantial ad spending and outside money in recent cycles, but those analyses focus on ad buys and disclosed donor entities rather than vendor-by-vendor billing for services such as staged crowds [4]. Consequently, vendor payments like those to Crowds on Demand can be difficult to surface without investigative requests or specific public-record flags; the sources provided do not offer that granular, comprehensive vendor-level mapping beyond the cited single example [4] [2].

5. Alternative explanations and editorial caution

One alternative interpretation is that more campaigns engaged Crowds on Demand but did not disclose vendor-level payments in accessible filings or that such payments were routed through intermediaries and therefore did not appear in the public searches cited here; the assembled material does not permit confirmation or refutation of that scenario [1]. Another possibility is selective media focus: outlets highlighted some controversial uses of the firm (Dallas projects, Entergy episode) while public-record identifications of ballot-campaign payments remain limited to the Six Californias committee in the documents summarized by Wikipedia [1]. Given those gaps, claims that Crowds on Demand was widely paid by ballot campaigns lack corroboration in the provided sources.

6. Bottom line and limitations of available reporting

Based on the reporting and public-record summaries accessible in the provided sources, the only U.S. ballot campaign explicitly documented as having reported payments to Crowds on Demand is the Six Californias initiative committee [1]; the available material does not substantiate additional ballot measures or campaigns with disclosed payments to the firm, and the record is explicitly limited by disclosure practices and the scope of the cited investigations [1] [4] [2].

Want to dive deeper?
Which news outlets first reported the Six Californias payment to Crowds on Demand and what public records did they cite?
How do state-level disclosure rules affect visibility of vendor payments in ballot measure campaigns?
What other documented examples exist of Crowds on Demand working for political or corporate clients in local advocacy campaigns?