ActBlue accused of weak foreign donor safeguards in House report

Republican-led House committees have released an interim staff report alleging that the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue utilized inadequate safeguards, potentially allowing prohibited foreign political contributions to enter the U.S. election system. The investigation, conducted jointly by the House Administration, Judiciary, and Oversight and Government Reform committees, claims that ActBlue’s verification process for foreign addresses was flawed. Specifically, the report alleges the system checked only if a provided passport number had the correct number of characters rather than verifying the number against a government database.

The report further alleges that ActBlue leadership retaliated against an attorney who raised legal concerns regarding these potential violations. Internal records cited in the investigation suggest that supervisors instructed employees to accept certain donations despite suspicious IP addresses from locations such as Hong Kong.

ActBlue has disputed these allegations, characterizing the investigation as politically motivated. The company cited a recent forensic analysis claiming that nearly all processed contributions came from donors providing U.S. addresses or evidence of U.S. citizenship, asserting that foreign-address donations were extremely rare and that its procedures functioned as intended.