New GAI Revelations: Obama Collects More Than $4.5 Million in Donations With Invalid Zip Codes

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Obama Collects More Than $4.5 Million In Donations With Invalid Zip Codes

Obama Accepts 16 Times More Donations via Erroneous Zip Codes Than Romney

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (October 22, 2012) — The Government Accountability Institute (GAI), a non-partisan investigative and research watchdog group, announced today a follow-up to their original report: America The Vulnerable: Are Foreign and Fraudulent Online Campaign Contributions Influencing U.S. Elections?

In their new report, titled: An Analysis Of FEC Campaign Donations Listing Non-Existent ZIP Codes , GAI found Federal Election Commission (FEC) data revealing that in 2012, President Barack Obama’s campaign has accepted $4,580,805.35 in campaign donations that list invalid zip codes—a figure 16 times greater than Gov. Mitt Romney’s campaign.

“The use of a robust Address Verification System (AVS) would significantly minimize donations with invalid zip codes from slipping through the net,” says GAI President Peter Schweizer.   “When you use your credit card at a pay-at-the-pump gas station, you have to enter your zip code.  Enter the wrong number or none at all, your transaction is denied.  If that’s the standard to buy gas, surely it’s reasonable to expect the same for donating to federal candidates.”

The study found that Gov. Romney’s 2012 FEC data include $282,814.78 in donations that have invalid zip codes.

Analysis of the 2008 presidential campaign reveals a similar pattern, with then-Sen. Obama having $2,778,808.97 donations with invalid zip codes, compared to Sen. John McCain’s $431,046

GAI’s findings come on the heels of its 108-page report, America The Vulnerable: Are Foreign and Fraudulent Online Campaign Contributions Influencing U.S. Elections?, which found that nearly half (47.3%) of the U.S. Congress have donation websites lacking basic anti-fraud protections that make them vulnerable to foreign  and fraudulent online donations.

GAI also released today raw data collected for its report on internet fundraising and placed it on www.CampaignFundingRisks.com.

“The data in these .csv files consists of webpages that link back to the primary websites we analyzed in our report,” said Schweizer.  “These links were collected according to what’s known as ‘page rank.’ This was accomplished using a combination of proprietary and commercially available software.  Our hope is that citizens will take the opportunity to do further exploration on this subject.”

To see the online donations, and to receive the official report, America The Vulnerable: Are Foreign and Fraudulent Online Campaign Contributions Influencing U.S Elections? visit: www.CampaignFundingRisks.com

GAI’s new report on donations from non-existent ZIP Codes:

AVS-ZIP-Report-10-21-12