The Tennessee Star has identified seven people who the leftist political donation platform ActBlue reported to campaign finance authorities “donated” more than 1,000 times since the beginning of 2023, further adding to the suspicions that the company is committing fraud.
Margaret Maher, a 68-year-old woman who is listed as “Not Employed,” has, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) by the Democrat-supporting non-profit corporation, given almost $33,000 to the left-wing’s largest Political Action Committee (PAC) through a total of 4,200 individual donations over the past 20 months.
A majority of those transactions range from $2 to $5. Some are earmarked for specific groups, like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), the Stop Trump PAC, the Retired Americans PAC, the National Democratic Training Committee PAC and many others. Maher, with or without her knowledge, happens to be the second-largest donor to the Stop GOP Governors PAC this year.
Still, a majority of her alleged donations went directly into the coffers of ActBlue to spend as it pleases.
ActBlue hauled in tens of millions of dollars for Vice President Kamala Harris’ recently-launched campaign for president.
At the time of this writing, it has been 589 days since January 1, 2023. Dividing the 4,200 individual donations by 598 days equals an average of 7.1 donations per day.
Dividing the total amount of the donations, $32,979, by 589 days equals about $56 of donations per day, meaning that each of the 7.1 donations per day averages about $8.
Supposed donors like Maher have been dubbed “ghost donors.”
The Star attempted to reach out to Maher, but her phone number was disconnected.
The Star also reached out to Mark Wildasin, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee who recently found probable cause to issue a warrant for a raid on the home of Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) over alleged campaign finance compliance issues. The Star asked whether, given this data, he thought there was probable cause to look into ActBlue.
“Thank you for sharing this information with our office,” he said by email. “As a general matter, we do not comment on whether or when we open an investigation.”
Republicans recently have asked the FEC to look into ActBlue’s atypically lax information collection policies on donors, including the fact that ActBlue, unlike nearly every e-commerce platform in the country, does not require donors to provide their three-digit CVV code from their credit cards when donating.
Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY-24) recently sent a letter to the FEC.
“Given the deliberate lack of security in their donation practices, it is unsurprising that ActBlue could be exploited for fraudulent activities,” Tenney said in the letter. “Recognizing that foreign actors use fake accounts to exploit donation systems lacking robust verification safeguards, most individual campaigns and political action committees (PACs) require CVV numbers to donate online. However, despite its widespread use among its online counterparts, ActBlue deliberately chooses not to require CVV numbers for donations, possibly facilitating fraudulent activities and foreign interference in our electoral system.”
Investigative journalist James O’Keefe first popularized the term “smurfing” last year to describe unwitting small-dollar donors to launder substantial cash donations.
In the coming days, The Star will continue to investigate the the anomalous “ghost donations” allegedly made by the other six Tennesseans, who each supposedly donated to ActBlue more than 1,000 times.
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Peter D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Peter on Twitter/X.
Photo “Woman Using Laptop” by Pixabay.
Not surprised. They can openly cheat. Who’s to stop them?
Excellent work, this fraud needs to be exposed.