Following more than a year of investigations into the security of Democratic political donation platform ActBlue, the Republican leader of the Committee on House Administration is now turning to the platform’s former fraud detection provider, Sift, for answers.
In a Monday letter sent to Sift, which uses artificial intelligence to detect fraudulent transactions, Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wisc., demanded the company provide all documents related to anti-fraud security efforts, potentially fraudulent transaction reports, and communications between or among Sift and the Executive Branch referring to alleged illicit donations on ActBlue.
“Because Sift has provided ‘fraud detection and prevention services’ for ActBlue, we write to request your cooperation with our oversight,” Steil said. “The potential that these bad actors may have exploited lax security measures provided to ActBlue by Sift forces the Committees to examine the potential criminal and national security ramifications.”
Steil launched a probe into ActBlue’s donor verification policies last year amid his concerns the organization was allowing foreign and fraudulent contributions to happen on its website.
Accusations of ActBlue violating or skirting federal campaign finance laws included laundering foreign contributions through prepaid gift cards, and accepting hundreds of donations for $2.50 from the same individual. Unlike many other online fundraising platforms, ActBlue does not require a CVV number for all donor transactions.
In its response to Steil’s accusations, ActBlue revealed it manually reviews contributions that indicate a foreign country in the address information, uses an external fraud prevention tool on its website–meaning Sift–and requires CVVs for some transactions.
“Traditionally, CVV numbers have addressed fraud in transactions where material goods or services are provided in order to prevent chargebacks for stolen goods, which is not the case with political contributions,” the organization said in Nov. 2023. “Still, we currently require and use CVV on many transactions across the site, and have been in the process of increasing coverage of CVV to improve the donor experience.”
Unsatisfied, Steil issued a subpoena in Oct. 2024 to ActBlue for all documents related to ActBlue’s donor verification policies and the potential for foreign actors to use ActBlue to launder illicit money into U.S. political campaigns.
“As the Committee continues to develop legislation to close loopholes in our campaign finance system and prevent foreign actors from influencing U.S. federal elections, we are issuing this subpoena to better inform our efforts to safeguard our nation’s elections,” Steil said.
