Thursday, October 16, 2008

Researching Campaign Fraud

The 2008 Presidential election Campaign has been plaqued with questions about the campaign financing. In order to research this properly, you need to understand Campaign Finance regulations first.


The chart below is from the Federal Elections Committee
(
http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/contriblimits.shtml )


















* These contribution limits are increased for inflation in
odd-numbered years.

1 A contribution earmarked for a candidate through a political
committee counts against the original contributor’s limit for that candidate.
In certain circumstances, the contribution may also count against the contributor’s
limit to the PAC.
11
CFR 110.6
. See also 11
CFR 110.1(h)
.


2 No more than $42,700 of this amount may be contributed
to state and local party committees and PACs.


3 This limit is shared by the national committee and the
Senate campaign committee.


4 A multicandidate committee is a political committee with
more than 50 contributors which has been registered for at least 6 months
and, with the exception of state party committees, has made contributions
to 5 or more candidates for federal office.
11
CFR 100.5(e)(3)
.


5 A federal candidate's authorized committee(s) may contribute
no more than $2,000 per election to another federal candidate's authorized
committee(s).
2 U.S.C. 432(e)(3)(B).




Now the question is, how do we research who has donated what?
Campaign Money(
http://www.campaignmoney.com/)

NewsMeat (http://www.newsmeat.com/) *Adds a link to the Actual FEC Filing



Look for any type of questionable activity like:
  • People living in poor neighborhoods donating very high dollar amounts
  • People donation money from overseas locations
  • Donations from Banks, Labor Unions, Government Contractors, Large Corporations






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