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Just in time for the midterm elections, the leading fundraising platform for Democrat candidates, ActBlue, announced a new security feature meant to help prevent fraudulent donations. On the surface, that sounds like a terrific idea, and it is. The problem is, the organization has been telling Congress for years that their proof of identification processes were secure, yet now admit they’ve beefed up their passport verification checks which some suggest is proof the agency was not doing what it should to prevent foreign transactions.
ActBlue Strengthens Passport Verification
In 2023, ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones told the House Administration Committee about safeguards the organization said it used for overseas donations. According to them, a prospective donor with a foreign address was prompted to provide a US passport number before the donation could proceed. However, congressional investigators found the passport verification wasn’t as strong as it sounded. According to the committee’s Sept. 16 report, ActBlue’s system checked to make sure the passport number contained the proper number of characters. It did not make sure that number belonged to a legitimate US passport by checking the numbers the information against a government database.
On Oct. 4, ActBlue announced it had implemented a new identity verification system for Americans making political donations while outside the US, then attorneys for the organization sent a letter the next day to notify House investigators of the changes. According to ActBlue’s website, “When a donor selects a non-U.S. location during the contribution process, ActBlue’s updated system prompts them to submit a photo of their U.S. passport and a contemporaneous headshot for verification through Stripe Identity, the platform powering this tool. The system then reviews the passport for authenticity and that it matches the person making the contribution.”
Critics claim the fact that ActBlue updated its passport verification system is proof that they didn’t verify citizenship in the past before accepting donations. House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil (R-WI) told Fox News, “This decision to implement a NEW [sic] passport verification program only confirms what we've been saying.” He argued that the organization now needs to determine just how much money processed under the old system might have come from foreign donors.
According to a new analysis, the group received $990 million in donations in 2023. About $1.3 million of which came from donors with foreign addresses. ActBlue said it collected passport numbers for 93% of those with foreign addresses to verify citizenship.
But that’s not all. According to the Committee’s Sept. 16 report:
“The documents produced to the Committees also detail several scenarios in which ActBlue supervisors instruct fraud prevention analysts to ‘give the donor the benefit of the doubt’ in making a contribution, despite multiple red flags. Oftentimes, ActBlue employees were instructed to accept a donation that they had previously rejected for signs of an illegal foreign contribution.”
The report went on to cite sources within the organization apparently verifying what appears to be, at the least, a lax attitude toward fraudulent donations:
“One ActBlue employee noted that a donor who ‘has a few red flags, such as IP/billing mismatch and a concerning IP provider name, a foreign credit card, an odd email domain, and [is] connected to other rejected users via browser fingerprint,’ should be accepted because ActBlue ‘can't say for sure that this is fraud.’ In another case, an analyst reported ‘an odd pattern of small donations to the [Kamala] Harris campaign using prepaid cards,’ which another ActBlue employee affirmed were ‘good to accept.’"
ActBlue claims the investigation by Republicans is just an attempt to discredit them. “We must continue to stand against all efforts to undermine the grassroots infrastructure that powers the Democratic Party,” ActBlue Wallace-Jones said in a statement to The Washington Post.
Wallace-Jones appeared before the House Administration Committee on June 10 and repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment right, which further adds doubt, in the eyes of critics.
A June report from the Committee referenced a New York Times article and ActBlue’s alleged knowledge of accepting foreign donations. The information was provided to the outlet through memoranda from former Joe Biden White House Counsel Dana Remus. “’ActBlue’s staff was aware that its [fraud-prevention] system was not as robust as necessary’ yet failed to make adequate changes to deter foreign donations,” the report informed. “For this reason, Remus found that ‘it could be alleged that [ActBlue’s] violations’ of federal campaign finance law ‘were knowing and willful.’”
Another memorandum mentioned Wallace-Jones specifically:
“[Wallace-Jones] may have made ‘false or misleading’ statements to the Committee on House Administration in 2023. Remus found that there was a risk of prosecutors concluding that Ms. Wallace-Jones misrepresented ActBlue’s use of passport verification tools for donations with signs of foreign origin, because such fraud-prevention ‘steps were not always followed.’ She opined that Ms. Wallace-Jones's misrepresentation could be seen ‘not just as a false statement but as an effort to conceal the foreign contributions.’"
Other Troubling Patterns
The Democrat fundraising platform is facing backlash on state levels, as well. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway has launched an investigation suggesting several Missouri Merchandising Practices Act violations which include fraud and unfair practices. The complaint also suspects ActBlue has been getting donations through prepaid gift cards, which are difficult to trace and are notoriously used by fraudsters and foreign donors to conceal contributions.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has also pursued ActBlue, claiming investigators were able to make donations using gift cards even after the organization claimed they no longer accepted them. Paxton became the target of a lawsuit that claimed his actions were politically motivated and a Massachusetts federal judge issued an injunction blocking it; however, Paxton is appealing.
ActBlue says there was nothing nefarious going on and that Republicans are simply trying to damage the Democrat fundraising machine. Maybe so, but the timing of its shiny new security measures certainly gives critics more to question. After years of assurances that safeguards were already in place, donors overseas will now have to prove they are who they say they are with an actual passport and a matching photo. Whether illegal foreign money made its way through ActBlue remains under investigation, but perhaps it just got harder for foreigners to give to the Democratic Party.
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