Fraudulent Online Donations to Obama Campaign

This blog entry provides a good overview of this very serious problem.

Some choice excerpts.

[i]The Obama campaign has shattered presidential fundraising records, in part by capitalizing on the ease of online giving. Of the $150 million the senator from Illinois raised in September, nearly $100 million came in over the Internet…

…Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited…

Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor’s identity, campaign officials confirmed…

The problem with such cards, campaign finance lawyers said, is that they make it impossible to tell whether foreign nationals, donors who have exceeded the limits, government contractors or others who are barred from giving to a federal campaign are making contributions.

“They have opened the floodgates to all this money coming in,” said Sean Cairncross, chief counsel to the Republican National Committee. “I think they’ve made the determination that whatever money they have to refund on the back end doesn’t outweigh the benefit of taking all this money upfront…”[/i]

I guess after you’ve already won, you can worry about how to return all the illegal contributions…after you’ve secured your win, of course.

Then, this.

[i]Which brings us to the case of Mary T Biskup of Manchester, Mo, who discovered there were scores of small online donations made to the Obama campaign in her name, even though she hasn’t given him a dime. They added up to $174,800, which is a wee bit over the $2,300 limit. This very generous donation was not billed to her own card, but to someone else’s - meaning (as the Post says) “someone appropriated her name”.

Ah, but who? And, if just one unwitting front is responsible for 175 grand of the Obama take, how many other Mary T Biskups are there out there?[/i]

Change? Pffft. Not only did he break his promise, he “opened the flood gates.”

What is also especially maddening is that the Obama campaign could have easily prevented this- but they didn’t.

Try donating anonymously to the McCain campaign. You can’t do it.

Untraceable donations, as far as I know, are illegal. By intentionally creating conditions for illegal donations, isn’t the campaign liable in some way?

Not only can one person donate above his or her limit, but who knows how many radical groups worldwide have given, or Obama lovers worldwide who think we owe it to them to vote Obama in, or whoever??

So now, flush with all that cash - which may be illegal - Obama is drowning McCain on the airwaves. Wonderful.

HARRISBURG – A former staffer for an affiliate of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now testified today that the organization was provided a “donor list” from the presidential campaign of Barack Obama in late 2007 for fundraising efforts.

Anita Moncrief, a former Washington, D.C. staffer for Project Vote, which she described as a sister organization of ACORN, said her supervisor told her the list of campaign contributors came from the Obama campaign. Moncrief said she has a copy of a “development plan” that outlines how Obama contributors who had “maxed out” under federal contribution limits would be targeted to give to Project Vote, and that it was her job to identify such contributors.

Moncrief testified that ACORN and Project Vote were virtually identical.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/…=rss&feed=1
I can’t help but wonder if money from the “maxed out” donors, supposedly going to Project vote, didn’t end up getting funneled through the non-existent screening process on these pre-paid cards.

Man, I don’t get how with all of these “rumors” (and I think most will be proved true), that many people don’t think twice about voting for Obama’s change.

Am I alone in this?

[quote]RebornTN wrote:
Man, I don’t get how with all of these “rumors” (and I think most will be proved true), that many people don’t think twice about voting for Obama’s change.

Am I alone in this?[/quote]

Unless you advertise this during dancing with the stars, most will not see it.

[quote]dhickey wrote:
RebornTN wrote:
Man, I don’t get how with all of these “rumors” (and I think most will be proved true), that many people don’t think twice about voting for Obama’s change.

Am I alone in this?

Unless you advertise this during dancing with the stars, most will not see it.[/quote]

It was like Mccain’s illegal fundraiser in England. Portions of it were funded by his UK sponsors which is very illegal as they are foreign nationals.

Don’t we hear the same shit from both sides every election cycle?

I’m pretty sure we’re going to hear about “election irregularities” from whoever seems to be losing as well.

I guess nobody wants to talk about the issues the nation faces, they’d rather point fingers and engender fear?

[quote]vroom wrote:
Don’t we hear the same shit from both sides every election cycle?

I’m pretty sure we’re going to hear about “election irregularities” from whoever seems to be losing as well.

I guess nobody wants to talk about the issues the nation faces, they’d rather point fingers and engender fear?[/quote]

Who is this “we” shit?

No one gives a shit what issues Canada faces.

You are not an American. Go wag your finger in another fucking direction.

[quote]vroom wrote:
Don’t we hear the same shit from both sides every election cycle?

I’m pretty sure we’re going to hear about “election irregularities” from whoever seems to be losing as well.

I guess nobody wants to talk about the issues the nation faces, they’d rather point fingers and engender fear?[/quote]

This is coming from a Canadian. GTFO of our election politics.

[quote]vroom wrote:
I guess nobody wants to talk about the issues the nation faces, they’d rather point fingers and engender fear?[/quote]

We aren’t talking issues? I see issues concerning economy, the proper role of government, national security, campaign finance, and etc., etc. being discussed on this board.

Possible violation of election law - massive, systemic violations - done by the party that champions the laws being violated as indispensable to the integrity of the election process is, in fact, an important national issue to be addressed.

It is particularly important given the bait-and-switch that occurred w/r/t the agreement to stick to public financing.

Bona fide electoral fraud isn’t a distraction - the integrity of elections is and will always be the linchpin of the other issues.

[quote]RebornTN wrote:
This is coming from a Canadian. GTFO of our election politics.[/quote]

Kiss my ass. I’ve been here for years and have had plenty of advice to leave…

If your only defense is to be concerned with the origin of an opinion compared to its substance, you have no defense.

I haven’t really seen any substantive evidence that this year is different than any other election year.

There are always registrations for Mickey Mouse, dead people, and other nonsense. Hell, I couldn’t imagine partisans from either party NOT mucking with registration drives of the other party.

How many election years in a row does this have to happen before you recognize it is a standard tactic?

Similarly, on the financial front, there are always some irregularities, committed by both parties. And then, the monies are generally returned. What’s new?

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Possible violation of election law - massive, systemic violations - done by the party that champions the laws being violated as indispensable to the integrity of the election process is, in fact, an important national issue to be addressed.

It is particularly important given the bait-and-switch that occurred w/r/t the agreement to stick to public financing.

Bona fide electoral fraud isn’t a distraction - the integrity of elections is and will always be the linchpin of the other issues.
[/quote]

[quote]vroom wrote:
RebornTN wrote:
This is coming from a Canadian. GTFO of our election politics.

Kiss my ass. I’ve been here for years and have had plenty of advice to leave…

If your only defense is to be concerned with the origin of an opinion compared to its substance, you have no defense.[/quote]

You’re making light of a very serious problem. Anyone who wishes could buy a bucket of cash gift cards and send them in. Can we say George Soros? Our election has been corrupted by these means.

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
You’re making light of a very serious problem. Anyone who wishes could buy a bucket of cash gift cards and send them in. Can we say George Soros? Our election has been corrupted by these means.
[/quote]

Has been?

Look, for years Republicans had the upper hand when it comes to finances and nobody thought that was a problem then. Maybe this will end up being the impetus for serious campaign finance reform in the long run.

In the shorter term, what evidence do you have that anything untoward has happened?

Have you gone to the Obama web site to make a donation? Do you really think there is a conspiracy to distribute bazillions of cards – other than perhaps on a small scale by Republican die-hards attempting to create a scandal – and that nobody would find out?

I’m not buying it yet. All I’ve seen and heard is innuendo and loaded questions which are meant to get the rabble roused. Just because it worked, the rabble is roused, doesn’t mean there is any substance there.

[quote]vroom wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
You’re making light of a very serious problem. Anyone who wishes could buy a bucket of cash gift cards and send them in. Can we say George Soros? Our election has been corrupted by these means.

Has been?

Look, for years Republicans had the upper hand when it comes to finances and nobody thought that was a problem then. Maybe this will end up being the impetus for serious campaign finance reform in the long run.
…[/quote]

Um, the current Republican candidate had a pretty serious problem with it.