Democratic fundraising platform says allegations of fraud are ‘disinformation’
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson takes his seat during a rally with former President Donald Trump on Sept. 25, 2023 in Summerville, South Carolina. (File/Sean Rayford/)
COLUMBIA — A major Democratic fundraising platform says allegations of fraud by South Carolina's attorney general are false and part of a broader campaign to discredit it.
Massachusetts-based ActBlue — a platform that processes donations to Democratic campaigns — dismissed allegations from Alan Wilson, the state attorney general, in an eight-page response that his office shared with the SC Daily Gazette. Wilson's office did not provide any comment on the letter or information about next steps the attorney general might take.
"These claims resemble those from an outside disinformation campaign propagating false information on social media," reads the letter from the organization's CEO, Regina Wallace-Jones, dated Sept. 6. "Claims by these groups are demonstrably false. They are designed to intimidate donors and mislead the public."
ActBlue acts as a pass-through, sending donations made online to candidates in exchange for a percentage fee.
In late August , Wilson sent ActBlue a letter alleging the platform may have split large donations into smaller donations to avoid campaign limits, which he likened to a "smurfing" money-laundering scheme.
He also says the platform may have allowed for "straw donors," when one person makes a donation on behalf of another. Wilson also said he was concerned about apparently large donations being made in South Carolina by people listed as unemployed.
Wilson did not make any direct accusations in his Aug. 22 letter, and used terms such as "may" and "if true" throughout. He asked for a response by Sept. 6, prompting the reply from Wallace-Jones.
"ActBlue maintains robust safeguards to protect donors and prevent illegal or fraudulent activity, often in excess of what is required by law," she writes in the letter.
SC AG Letter 9-6-2024
In the letter, Wallace-Jones said ActBlue uses state-of-the-art fraud detection. The platform assigns each donation a fraud score based on a range of factors and automatically rejects or sets aside for manual review any suspicious donations. The automatic review includes 140 elements, such as the payment card's age and the country where it was issued, she wrote.
As for the question of donations from unemployed people, Wallace-Jones wrote that ActBlue provides an option for people to report they are "retired or currently unemployed." This covers people like students, retirees and homemakers, not just those looking for work.
Wallace-Jones also wrote that because donations are reported by both ActBlue and campaigns — and donors can choose to split donations among multiple campaigns — federal election disclosures can show many duplicate donation reports even from a single contribution.
A number of other Republican officials have raised questions about ActBlue over the summer.
Virginia's attorney general, Jason Miyares, sent a similar letter in early August . Indiana's attorney general Todd Rokita announced his office was looking into "allegations" later that same month .
