On October 21, 2024, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the findings of his investigation into ActBlue, a prominent Democratic fundraising platform, uncovering a large number of suspicious donations made through obscure identities and untraceable means. This investigation, which began in December 2023, delved into whether ActBlue’s platform allowed illegal donations to interfere with American elections, potentially facilitating contributions from foreign entities or exceeding legal limits.
The findings revealed that ActBlue’s platform could be exploited to make “straw donations,” where contributors disguise their identity by attributing contributions to other, unsuspecting individuals. These suspicious donations pose a serious threat to the integrity of campaign finance laws, as they enable bad actors to bypass legal restrictions, funneling money into political campaigns through untraceable methods.
Paxton has called on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to address the vulnerabilities identified in this investigation. He has petitioned for the FEC to close off avenues for straw donations and strengthen regulations to secure the electoral system. The discovery of these issues within ActBlue’s platform underscores the urgent need for increased scrutiny and regulation of online fundraising mechanisms, as the system’s current weaknesses could be exploited by criminal actors, threatening the legitimacy of political campaigns.
BREAKING: Our investigation into ActBlue has uncovered facts indicating that bad actors can illegally interfere in American elections by disguising political donations.
It is imperative that the FEC close off the avenues we have identified by which foreign contributions or… pic.twitter.com/8E5vfaYxDL
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) October 21, 2024
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