The comment is upvoted now, but possibly the downvotes were for describing it as a "trick". One of the candidates they managed to interview admitted some signatures were forged for $5 each.

(The link opened fine for me.)

The interview says they paid someone for collecting signatures, not forging them. Of course at the price of $5 that might have been implicit at the time.

Your link redirects me to chicagotribune.com/. Maybe only works for subscribers?

Interesting. I'm definitely not a subscriber, so that's not the issue.

I posted the obligatory archive.is link as a sibling comment.

Link worked for me, not a subscriber.

Same, maybe it's µblock Origin that fixes it? I'm using mostly stock LibreWolf with its preinstalled µBO on a MSW 10 library computer (though btw AdNauseum is a better µBO fork).

If you want more information on this from former president Obama himself, read The Promise Land. He discusses this issue and he narrates the book.

Non-paywall: https://archive.is/2Jyu2