ActBlue faces scrutiny over Michigan woman’s $100K+ in donations

By Elyse Apel
The Center Square

ActBlue is facing scrutiny after a report last week raised questions about thousands of political donations made in the name of an 88-year-old Michigan woman.

The story caught national attention after Michigan Enjoyer reporter Charlie LeDuff posted a video interviewing Elizabeth Waffle of Milan, Michigan.

“I doubt it,” Waffle said when asked by LeDuff if she’s made 14,696 donations totaling more than $150,000 in the past five years, which are the totals reported by Michigan Enjoyer.

Living in a trailer, Waffle said she didn’t think it was possible she’d donated that much.

“I don’t have that kind of money,” she said. “I can’t believe it.”

ActBlue is an online platform used nationally by Democratic candidates and progressive organizations to raise funds.

According to Federal Election Commission records pulled by The Center Square, Waffle’s name shows $100,295 in contributions processed through ActBlue across the 2021-2022, 2023-2024 and the 2025-2026 election cycles. That is a total of 12,900 donations ranging from $0.24 to $107.50.

The difference between the totals reported by Michigan Enjoyer and The Center Square could not be fully reconciled. However, The Center Square’s totals more closely aligned with Michigan Enjoyer’s figures when Waffle’s transactions were not filtered to only those listing ActBlue as the recipient.

While the donations are labeled on the FEC website as donations via ActBlue, they are then distributed to different candidates. In Waffle’s case, this was to campaigns across the nation, including ones in Arizona, Colorado and many more.

De’Andra LaBoo, the external communications director at ActBlue, addressed the story in a statement provided to The Center Square.

“ActBlue has reviewed all relevant contribution data, and our customer service team has already reached out to the donor for more information,” LaBoo said. “It is standard operating procedure that we take corrective action when a noncompliant donation is identified, which may include – but is not limited to – blocking accounts from making further contributions, issuing requested refunds to users, and reporting any fraudulent activity to the appropriate authorities.”

LaBoo also shared information about Tandem Fundraising, which is an option provided by ActBlue where donations can be made as a single contribution form but will then be split between a number of different campaigns or organizations. The contributions would then be listed as separate transactions to the FEC, though the contributor only filled out the form once.

Waffle’s story was picked up by conservative groups and commentators nationally, prompting renewed calls for a federal investigation into ActBlue and its donations.

The Center Square spoke with Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher with the conservative nonprofit Capital Research Center, who outlined his concerns with ActBlue’s contribution processing system.

“There’s long been a belief, with good reason behind it, that certain unknown people are using ActBlue to donate large amounts of money to political candidates, political parties under other people’s names,” Thayer said. “What the Michigan Enjoyer investigated . . . is exactly what people have thought for a long time was going on.”

The center has conducted multiple investigations into ActBlue.

“We’ve been trying to raise the alarm about the lack of security in ActBlue payment processing for a long time,” Thayer said.

According to Thayer, there are multiple fronts for concern with ActBlue. The first is how the FEC database makes public all the information needed to fake someone’s identity for donations.

“When you donate, the FEC website then makes public all the information you would need to fake that person’s identity to donate as them,” Thayer said. “You just type in a name, an address, and then provide a source of payment, which can be, for example, an untraceable prepaid debit cards bought in cash at any gas station . . . You don’t have to prove you’re the person that you say you are when you’re donating.”

He added that he thinks Waffle’s case could be an example of what is commonly known as “smurfing.”

“This coming out in Michigan is a pretty big deal because it seems to be proof of what a lot of people have been saying,” Thayer said. “The sums involved and this woman’s obvious destituteness suggests to me that there’s some kind of smurfing going on.”

ActBlue did not say specifically if it had identified unauthorized activity in Waffle’s account.

Another aspect flagged by Thayer is potential confusion over aspects of ActBlue like recurring payments.

“The pattern is always that people retired living in very small homes are donating enormous amounts of money because they are signed up for multiple recurring contributions, making donations to sometimes dozens of candidates at a time . . . that adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Thayer said. “The incentive structure that ActBlue has created encourages people to go after very vulnerable donors and sign them up repeatedly for multiple, recurring contributions every single month.”