Investigators find ActBlue donations inflated for many Wisconsin seniors

(The Center Square) – Two donors said they had never before made a political donation. Another said “look where I’m living” when asked if he made 7,878 donations worth $93,168.

And many more Wisconsin seniors confirmed they had not donated nearly as much as had been claimed in federal donation filings to ActBlue with the Federal Election Commission.

All of this came from multiple reports from a group of private investigators led by Kyle Corrigan of Brightline Investigations into Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue’s political donations in Wisconsin that were shared with The Center Square.

Corrigan said the two reports – one in 2023, another in 2025 – were updates on an ongoing look into a practice referred to as “smurfing,” where the group is accused of attributing more donations and higher dollar amounts to individual donors than they actually gave in a process that can shield other donors from transparency.

Corrigan wrote in his report the donations could be qualified as both identity theft a...