Jonathan Lange: How We Can Help Congress And Our Secretary Of State Keep Elections Clean

The House Committee on Investigation and Oversight is investigating fraud and illegal campaign contributions that may be taking place on fundraising platforms like ActBlue. On September 18, it sent referrals to the attorneys general of Missouri, Florida, Virginia, Texas, and Arkansas. Each referral warned of “potential unlawful exploitation of unwitting ‘straw donors,’ whose identities may have been used to channel illicit funds into campaigns in your state.”

In a separate investigation, the Committee on House Administration has requested the U.S. Treasury to provide—by today, October 4—all Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) “filed or relating to transactions occurring on or after January 1, 2023, to the present, containing the term ‘ActBlue’, which relate to money laundering, counterfeit credit/debit card, credit card or debit card fraud, false statements, wire transfer fraud, or identity theft.”

ActBlue boasts of raising over $15 billion campaign dollars over the past 20 years. If any of those contributions were fraudulent it would constitute an instance of election fraud.

Funneling campaign cash through “straw donors” allows campaign cash to be laundered through people who have no idea that they are being used. Stolen money or money from foreign donors can thus be injected into both national and local campaigns undetected. Computer bots divide the money into hundreds of small donations spread out over time.

Straw donors turbocharge identity theft. Bad actors use computer algorithms to randomize electronic funds transfers from unsuspecting individuals. The Committee wrote about “some cases in which single donors made tens of thousands of separate donations worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

We should applaud both the Committee on House Administration and the House Committee on Investigation and Oversight for acting on these reports and taking up the legitimate job of investigation. We should also applaud our own secretary of state, Chuck Gray.

Months before the Committee on Investigation and Oversight sent its letter to the US Treasury, Gray announced: “In the wake of nationwide money laundering and identity theft allegations against Democratic fundraising organization ActBlue,” he is launching an investigation.

Gray explained, “ActBlue has been accused of stealing peoples’ identities to conceal illegal donations, such as donations from foreign actors.” If true, this would be a felony under Wyoming law.

One factor that makes “straw donors” so difficult to detect is that campaign contributions are protected under the First Amendment. When asked about his investigation, Gray emphasized that the office of the secretary of state had no intention of randomly snooping into Wyomingites’ campaign donations. That’s why this investigation must be driven by citizens who take the initiative to see if they have been exploited.

The first thing you should do is to go to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) search page and enter your name and zip code. Your campaign contributions will be listed in the search results.

According to Gray’s July 30 press release, “Any Wyoming citizen who has reason to believe a political action committee stole their identity or falsely reported a donation using their name is encouraged to report this to the Wyoming Secretary of State’s Office at elections@wyo.gov or 307-777-5860.”

Chairman Bryan Steil, of the Committee on House Administration, provided more details of what to look for: “Donations significantly disproportionate to an individual’s net worth or previous giving history. Uncharacteristic donations from party-affiliated registered voters suddenly contributing to candidates of the opposing party. Unusually frequent donations from elderly individuals or first-time donors.”

Taking this advice, I went to the FEC site to make sure that my own identity had not been hijacked. Thankfully, it hadn’t. But while I was there, I couldn’t help but notice a fellow Wyomingite who was credited with 1,200 donations to ActBlue in amounts ranging from .20¢ to $3.00. Another gave over 700 times.

I hope they are reading this column. Wyomingites who have been exploited by ActBlue—or any other organization—have nothing to fear from the secretary of state.

By taking the time to review your own donations, you can not only thwart the theft of your own identity, but you can also help to prevent others from being exploited.

Whether you have given one or two donations, or none at all, now would be an excellent time to go to the FEC website and make sure that it accurately reflects your giving.

Simply go to the Federal Elections Commission website at FEC.gov. Click on the “Campaign Finance Data” tab and select “All Data.” There you can enter your name under “Find contributions from specific individuals.” This will take you to a search page that allows you narrow the search even more.

If we all work together, we can help the SOS keep bad actors out of Wyoming elections.

Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/. Email: JLange64@protonmail.com.