The New York Times reported yesterday that Barack Obama’s campaign finance records are riddled with fictitious donors, leaving his campaign with thousands – possibly even millions – of dollars in donations that are completely untraceable. Does that smell fishy to anybody else?
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Fictitious Donors Found in Obama Finance Records
New York Times – October 10, 2008
by Michael Luo & Griff Palmer

Last December, someone using the name “Test Person,” from “Some Place, UT,” made a series of contributions, the largest being $764, to Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign totaling $2,410.07.

Someone identifying himself as “Jockim Alberton,” from 1581 Leroy Avenue in Wilmington, Del., began giving to Mr. Obama last November, contributing $10 and $25 at a time for a total of $445 through the end of February.

The only problem? There is no Leroy Avenue in Wilmington. And Jockim Alberton, who listed his employer and occupation as “Fdsa Fdsa,” does not show up in a search of public records.

An analysis of campaign finance records by The New York Times this week found nearly 3,000 donations to Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee, from more than a dozen people with apparently fictitious donor information. The contributions represent a tiny fraction of the record $450 million Mr. Obama has raised. But the questionable donations — some donors were listed simply with gibberish for their names — raise concerns about whether the Obama campaign is adequately vetting its unprecedented flood of donors.

It is unclear why someone making a political donation would want to enter a false name. Some perhaps did it for privacy reasons. Another, more ominous possibility, of course, is fraud, perhaps in order to donate beyond the maximum limits.

There is no evidence that questionable contributions amount to anything more than a small portion of Mr. Obama’s fund-raising haul. The Times’s analysis, conducted over a few days and looking for obvious anomalies, like names or addresses with all consonants, identified about $40,000 in suspect contributions that had not been refunded by the campaign as of its last filing with the Federal Election Commission, in September.

It appears that campaign finance records for Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee, contain far fewer obviously false names, although he has taken in about $200 million in contributions, less than half Mr. Obama’s total. Mr. McCain did collect about $173,000 from donors who appear in campaign finance records with only a name and have no other identifying information. Mr. Obama collected about $314,000 from such donors.

Although campaigns have long wrestled with questionable donations, Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, said the record-setting number of new donors Mr. Obama has drawn, many of them online, presents new challenges to a compliance system that remains stuck in the past.

Ms. Krumholz pointed out, however, that it would take an extraordinary amount of coordination to pull off widespread fraud.

Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, highlighted the more than 2.5 million donors it had to wade through. “We have been aggressive about taking every available step,” he said, “to make sure our contributions are appropriate, updating our systems when necessary.”

But even a contributor who used the name “Jgtj Jfggjjfgj,” and listed an address of “thjtrj” in “gjtjtjtjtjtjr, AP,” was able to contribute $370 in a series of $10 donations in August.

A pair of donors named “Derty West” and “Derty Poiiuy,” who listed “rewq, ME” as their addresses and “Qwertyyy” or “Qwerttyyu” as either their employer or occupation, contributed a combined $1,110 in July.

In some cases, campaign finance records showed refunds from the Obama campaign, presumably to donors’ credit cards, even as other contributions were accepted. Obama officials said most of their vetting occurred after a donation came in.

Officials with campaign finance watchdog groups said that there was no proof of a widespread problem, but that the issue certainly warranted additional scrutiny.

“I think the candidates need to be clearer about the vetting systems they’re using and demonstrating they’re sufficient to weed out potential fraud,” said Stephen Weissman, associate director for policy at the Campaign Finance Institute.

The questionable donations to the Obama campaign, most of which appear to have been given in small increments online, are bolstering the contentions of some campaign finance groups that additional disclosure requirements are needed for contributions of $200 or less.

Federal candidates are not required to itemize such contributions to the F.E.C. unless the donor’s cumulative total adds up to more than $200. Roughly 70 percent of these contributions to Mr. Obama are not reported, compared with more than 75 percent of Mr. McCain’s.

On Monday the Republican National Committee filed a complaint against the Obama campaign with the F.E.C., questioning the legitimacy of the more than $220 million in small donations to Mr. Obama’s campaign.

The complaint followed an article on the conservative Web site Newsmax.com that highlighted thousands of dollars in contributions, made in increments of $25 dating back to March, from “Good Will” in Austin, Tex., who listed his employer as “Loving” and his occupation as “You,” as well as thousands in small contributions that started last November from a “Doodad Pro” in Nunda, N.Y., with the same employer and occupation.

Doodad Pro and Good Will, who made more than 1,000 contributions each and whose totals far exceeded the $4,600 that individuals can legally give to the primary and general elections, were flagged by the F.E.C. in standard letters regarding excess contributions sent to the Obama campaign. The commission alerted the campaign about Good Will as early as June, giving it 30 days to respond.

The Obama campaign refunded several thousand dollars in contributions to the two donors, even before receiving the letters from the F.E.C. But its campaign finance filing in September showed it had failed to refund more than $10,000 in donations from each of them, although Obama officials say all of the money has now been returned.

Even though Good Will made more than $7,000 in contributions to the Obama campaign in March, and even more after that, Suzanha Burmeister, marketing director at Goodwill Industries of Central Texas, a nonprofit group whose address matches the one listed by the donor, said the organization was not contacted by the campaign until September.

The group was not asked about fraud but instead received several letters informing the donor that he had exceeded his contribution limit for the primary and asking if he wanted to redirect the excess to the general election.

Someone from the group immediately called the Obama campaign, Ms. Burmeister said, and was told it was having “integrity issues” with its online donations. “They must be really backlogged,” she said.

The contributions from Doodad Pro shot up to $11,275 in February alone, of which F.E.C. records show the Obama campaign refunded only $2,550 initially.

The address listed by Doodad Pro leads to Lloyd & Lynn’s Liquor & Wine in Nunda, a town of about 3,000 people.

Lynn Kirwan, one of the store’s owners, said they used to share an address with a consignment shop called Doodad’s. Several months earlier, she said, the local police contacted the store to ask about some athletic equipment that had been ordered by a Doodad Pro, but she said they had heard nothing from the Obama campaign.

Another donor apparently connected to Good Will and Doodad Pro, “Fornari Usa,” listed the same “Loving” and “You” under employer and occupation, and made a series of $25 donations to Mr. Obama in May, totaling $1,050.

The address leads to a women’s clothing store, Fornari U.S.A., in Milpitas, Calif. Levi Lazo, a sales associate, said she and her manager were mystified by the donations.

“None of us,” Ms. Lazo said, “have made any contributions.”