Foreign Donations Accepted?

If you are looking to donate to President Barack Obama’s campaign and currently live outside of the United States, No Worries! Because you are in luck!  Obama.com is accepting donations.  The Obama.com website redirects everyone to the campaign donation site. Not only will the donation page accept your money, but it will also accept false donation information.  You can enter in false street addresses, zip codes, states, and it does not even ask for specific card information, such as the three digit security number or the CVV on the back of any American debit or credit card, which verifies that it is an American card.

One British citizen Chris Walker recently donated two different 5 dollar donations to the website Obama.com, which is actually the Obama-Biden donation website. The NY Post reports that,

“not only did Walker’s Obama donations go through, but he said he began receiving two to three e-mail solicitations a day to give more. The e-mails asked for $188 or more.

According to campaign law, anyone who donates 200 dollars or more must be reported to the FEC, and this 188 dollars would keep those foreign donations under that identification threshold.

Walker who also attempted to donate the Romney campaign was unable to make the donations because the Romney campaign site asked for specific information, the New York Post also reported that  Walker said,

“When I did Romney’s, the payment got rejected on the grounds that the address on the card did not match the address that I entered,” he said. “Romney’s Web site wanted the code from the back of card. Barack Obama’s didn’t.”

The address that Chris Walker attempted to enter was his street address where he truly lives, which is in England, but entered Arkansas as his state of residence. Along with a United States zip code, was accepted by the Obama campaign’s website, but was rejected by the Romney campaign’s website.

Earlier this month on October 8th, Breitbart News reported that it;

“obtained an advance copy of the bombshell report which reveals that the Obama.com website is not owned by the president’s campaign but rather by Obama bundler Robert Roche, a U.S. citizen living in Shanghai, China. Roche is the chairman of a Chinese infomercial company, Acorn International, with ties to state-controlled banks that allow it to “gain revenue through credit card transactions with Chinese banks.”

In the report found at the Campaign Funding Risks website, which is a downloadable document, it states;

According to Markosweb, which uses data from Google Analytics, approximately 68% of Internet traffic going to Obama.com comes from foreign locations.  An examination of the backlinks going to Obama.com reveals that a strong majority is from foreign language or foreign-based websites. These websites do not appear to be catering to American expatriates.

During June and July of 2012, web traffic to the site increased, again with the majority of the traffic coming from overseas. An examination of the traffic generated indicates that most visitors are not coming to the website through search engines but are arriving there by typing in “Obama.com” or by clicking a link to Obama.com.

In regards to this “mix up” of unregulated errors, the Obama Campaign’s  spokesman Michael Czin, said this was, “a minor technical error.” and “All the ZIP codes and numbers are real and can be verified.”

In the same report by GAI, at the Campaign Funding Risks website also stated that;

The Government Accountability Institute found numerous links to Obama.com on foreign blog sites and forum boards. These links increase the probability that foreign nationals will try to donate to the Obama campaign, a campaign whose online security tools are lacking.

President Obama and the his party have been advocates of more government oversight of financial institutions and stronger regulations, and yet, this “minor error” seems not be that important to him or his campaign, or for that matter the democratic party in general.  There are no outcries for investigations or hearings into this incident.

I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, and
worse, by foreign entities.
—President Obama
2010 State of the Union Address