Obama Campaign Disabling Online Contribution Security To Facilitate Foreign Money Flow?
This really isn’t a new development for the Obama campaign, which essentially did the same thing in 2008. But they’re doing it again, according to a new report, and it’s pretty clear they’re doing it on purpose.
OFA seems to be taking advantage of a “foreign donor loophole” by not using CVV on their campaign donation page. When you donate online to the Obama campaign using a credit card, the contribution webpage does not require donors to enter a secure CVV number (also known as CSC, CVV2 or CVN), the three-digit securing code on the back of credit cards. This code, although not 100 percent effective, is used to ensure a person making a purchase physically possesses the card. According to the report, 90 percent of e-commerce and 19 of the 20 largest charities in the United States use a CVV code, making its use standard industry practice in order to prevent fraud. Another anti-fraud security measure includes software, better known as an Address Verification System, to verify a donor’s address matches the address on file with the credit card company. The investigation could not determine whether OFA is using this type of software to prevent fraudulent or illegal donations.
Because of the lack of a CVV code requirement, the door is opened for OFA to accept robo-donations, or in other words, large numbers of small and automatic donations made online to evade FEC reporting requirements. Although it isn’t illegal to decline the use of a secure CVV credit card code for campaign donations, it is illegal to accept campaign donations from foreign sources. Campaigns are required under criminal code not to solicit, accept or receive foreign donations in any amount. The Federal Elections Commission doesn’t require campaigns to disclose the names of donors making contributions of less than $200 unless audited. In addition, FEC rules don’t require campaigns to keep records of those giving less than $50. These rules combined with the lack of a CVV numbers make it easy for campaigns to get away with taking foreign donations. …
As of September 26, 2012, the Obama campaign has raised $271,327,755 in contributions under $200 for the 2012 cycle. In 2008, it was $335,139,233. The Romney campaign has raised just $58,456,968 in contributions under $200 and has all CVV and online security measures in place. In total, the Obama campaign raised $500 million online in 2008 with $335 million in contributions–more than half–falling under the $200 reporting requirement. Obama has raised more online funds than any campaign in history.
One of the outrages of the 2008 election is that there was no FEC audit of the Obama campaign’s contributions. That’s frustrating because an audit, even given the scope of these donations, wouldn’t be that hard. The Obama campaign could take two steps to fix this problem immediately, and rebut claims of illegal fundraising methods.
They could enable address verification and CVV for their online contributions, and they could fully disclose their database of all contributions so that we can ensure that they haven’t received foreign contributions.
My guess is that the Obama campaign will do neither.
Tags: Barack Obama, election 2012
