‘Suspicious’ donations to political campaigns might have another explanation, 9NEWS finds

With the click of a button, five bucks can flow from your bank account and into the campaign coffers of some of your favorite politicians. The ease of giving has turned into a veritable boon for both political parties, which now often raise tens of millions per day with the help of individual, and oftentimes small, donations.

You’ve probably seen or even received a few of the pitches yourself on your cellphone or in an email. They generally follow a pattern. “We need 5 bucks by Wednesday!” “We haven’t heard from you in ages!”

Most of us simply ignore the requests.

But a few of us like to give. And some of those few like to give a lot. Like, multiple times a day. Every day. For weeks. That kind of “a lot.”

It’s led some to assume something suspicious, perhaps even illegal, is taking place.

When 9NEWS Investigates started looking into what we’ll call the “frequent donors” in early August, we didn’t exactly know what we’d eventually find.

More than two months later, we have yet to find any definitive proof of fraud, but we have found something we believe worthy of additional review.

At least a few of the frequent donors are dealing with varying levels of cognitive decline. 

One, according to his daughter, has advanced Alzheimer’s. Federal Elections Commission data indicates her father has donated more than $100,000 since the start of last year. Another is a Vietnam veteran suffering from what he calls the long-term effects of Agent Orange exposure.

His hands constantly shake, and he admits, “I don’t remember things.” 

He’s donated more than $50,000, mostly through the ActBlue platform.

Experts in cognitive decline tell us the methods used by the political parties that make it so easy and enticing to donate are now taking advantage of people who oftentimes can’t remember a donation made a week or, in some instances, an hour ago.

The daughter of one of the frequent donors tells us the parties are taking advantage of people like her mom. 

“This is a form of elder abuse in my opinion,” she told us.

For the purposes of this story and to help protect the identities of the people we believe to be vulnerable, we have chosen to identify the donors – and their families – by using only their first names. We know some of you might disagree with our decision, but we made it once we learned more about the people we were contacting.

Their names are public, but we’ve decided not to make them any more so.

In one instance, a woman who had donated thousands couldn’t recall by the end of a five-minute call who I was or why I was calling.

“These are real people who are giving this money, and for campaigns to treat them as replaceable and disposable, yes, that raises some ethical concerns they should be thinking about,” said Derek Willis, a data journalist and lecturer at the University of Maryland. “There has to be the recognition that there is the potential for harm.” 

I started making phone calls in early August.

One by one, I called what I had identified as the most frequent donors in Colorado through the online fundraising platforms of both the Democratic and Republican parties – the aptly named ActBlue and WinRed, respectively.

Intrigued by social media chatter, I wanted to see if I could identify – and talk to at least some of – the people who had donated, in many instances, more than a thousand times since the start of the latest election cycle early last year.

I was mainly curious; not sure if there was a story or not.

So I started to call who I had identified as the top 20 donors, in terms of frequency and not total amounts, to the political campaigns’ fundraising behemoths. Using Federal Election Commission data, I was able to get the list of these folks quite easily.

A woman I’ll call Susan was pleasant when she answered the phone. She’s given a few thousand dollars through hundreds of small donations largely through the WinRed platform. By the end of the call, she couldn’t remember why I had called. 

Another woman also named Susan had given more than $10,000, according to FEC records. She told me to contact her brother, as he was more attuned to her finances than she was.

I spent weeks trying to find a man named Donald. He’d donated more than $50,000 through ActBlue. By searching through his online social media posts, it seemed clear he was vehemently Democratic. But there also seemed more to the story than just that.

I spoke to a former neighbor. Donald wasn’t the kind of guy who would have tens of thousands lying around to give, he told me.

I called more people before eventually finding him with the help of that former neighbor.

When I asked him how much he thought he’d donated, he initially told me maybe $2,500.

After a little more prodding, he admitted he forgets a lot of things these days. 

“[My mind] is kind of hazy these days,” he said.

“Do you ever worry you’ve donated too much?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he said.

Seven minutes into our conversation, he showed me his phone. There were three new text messages on it from campaigns asking him for money.

Bridget Barrett, Ph.D. is an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and teaches students about the intersection of digital marketing and politics.

She said the text messages and emails people like Donald receive aren’t meant to be subtle. 

“We know that you need emotional drivers in your ads,” she said. “We know that is a major part of persuading.”

She said the advances in online solicitation have made it simple for campaigns to reach millions quickly. 

“This is just one of the many changes where you can reach somebody wherever they are with a message asking them to donate,” she said.

“They are fighting for your attention, so they know they have to be a bit grabby so that you don’t just move on,” she said.

And there, she said, is the problem when it comes to a less technologically savvy and cognitively declined individual. They can get hammered with solicitations. It’s something I heard over and over again from families I contacted.

Mandy told me her mother gets 20-30 texts a day. 

“You then get into a cycle where you donate a couple of times, and then they’re after you,” she said.

Barrett told me she’s hardly surprised families feel like campaigns are taking advantage of their loved ones. 

“I’m glad you’re looking into it,” she said.

Lauren Hersch Nicholas, Ph.D. is a professor of medicine at University of Colorado Hospital. She said the toxic stew of campaign solicitation bombardment represents a threat to a cognitively declined population. And her research suggests people may start to make bad financial decisions, on average, six years prior to showing any outward and obvious signs of cognitive decline.

“It’s forgetting to pay bills or paying the same bills multiple times,” she said. “Some family members say they find out because there’s suddenly a huge array of Amazon boxes in the house.”

“I think one of the worst things about working in this area is how many people tell me, ‘I’m living your research. This is happening to my mom, my dad,’” she said.

I’m still struggling with the idea behind this story, I’ll readily admit.

I contacted a lot of families who almost certainly weren’t fully aware of the spending/donating habits of their loved ones. I know in at least a few instances, my phone calls led to family meetings that I am sure weren’t easy for any of the participants.

I think in the end, however, I settled on the idea that people deserve to know more. The information is decidedly public. And the frequency of donations (and solicitations) deserves much more scrutiny. I can’t say for sure Donald donated every dime himself to the ActBlue funded causes, but my interview with him suggested it’s certainly possible he did.

Willis has done similar stories and battled similar questions. He said people need to be aware this is taking place. 

“In my experience, most of the time friends and family members just aren’t aware of this kind of behavior until they’ve given tens of thousands of dollars away,” he said. “We’ve got vulnerable folks who are making decisions that aren’t in their best interests.”

“We should not be dismissing this as, oh, this is politics. People know what they’re getting into,” he said.

I did speak to some people who seemed fully aware of their donating habits, and I routinely told donors and families it’s not my business to judge someone’s spending/donating patterns if the donor is fully aware of what they’re doing.

But I also worry about people like Donald. He’s living alone. He doesn’t have a large group of family members keeping track of his bank account. 

WinRed, as of the date of this story, did not reply to a series of questions we sent.

A spokesperson for ActBlue pointed out that the nonprofit is a fundraising platform and does not solicit donations. That is up to the campaigns who use the platform to help them raise money largely through the small, individual donations.

“ActBlue does not send any emails or text messages or engage in any fundraising on behalf of campaigns or groups, but serves as a fundraising platform, enabling grassroots contributions,” read a printed statement from ActBlue. The nonprofit did not directly respond to a series of questions we asked.

ActBlue did send this link to contact them if someone wants to change or fix a donation.

If this story sounds familiar to you and you’re dealing with a similar problem, I’d like to hear from you. Please contact me at chris.vanderveen@9news.com