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Comment by joering2 | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for the write-up.

Too bad that there were no checks in place to determine who is actually contributing. For that reason, many non-citizens were able to contribute, some from questionable places, and even Osama ibn Laden had posthumously donated, receiving congratulation later from Barrack's wife thanking him for his donation [1].

Since Romney was rejecting contributions that could not be confirmed as of where they came from, this race in terms of fund-rising was skewed from a get-go. Imagine a marathon where everyone runs on their feet and you -- against the rules -- are using a bicycle. Guess who's gonna win?

[1] http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/obama-accepts-osama-bin-laden-don...

For those who hate googling:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10...

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/10/08/exposin...

http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=76534...

View on HN

The IP address and name are irrelevant. Should US citizens living in Pakistan be disallowed from making campaign contributions because they have arab sounding names?

The only thing that matters is whether the donations come from a US credit card. As far as I can tell all of these farcical contributions came from US credit cards.

Nothing in those articles reliably supports (i.e. beyond a couple individual anecdotes) the contention that a) the Obama campaign had "no checks" or b) that Romney was rejecting unconfirmable contributions.

hello there, google hater!

how about this one? http://joshuapundit.blogspot.com/2012/10/obama-campaign-bust...

From the link:

"Walker said he used his actual street address in England but entered Arkansas as his state with the Schenectady, NY, ZIP code of 12345."

In fairness, that's fraud on Walker's part not on the Obama campaign's part. There's a limit to what kind of checks you can feasibly do. By the sounds of it, requiring a billing address in the United States seems reasonable.

Thanks, I didn't see that bit.

> There's a limit to what kind of checks you can feasibly do.

Actually, this one would've been easy to catch - we know which states have which zip codes. The company I work for checks this in web forms, but I don't find that such validation is common.

> By the sounds of it, requiring a billing address in the United States seems reasonable.

Problem is, it isn't. US citizens living abroad have every right to donate.

Actually, I think that zip code is valid :) according to a quick Google search at least.

But I admit I hadn't thought about citizens living abroad; that makes it more understandable there would be these issues. It's certainly a case of (perhaps) incompetence over malice anyway.

Edit: my mistake, I missed that he claimed the zip was in Arkansas.

It's a valid zip, but not for the state of Arkansas. It says he entered "Arkansas, 12345", which is something that could be automatically caught.

You would need some sort of photo of their passport to verify citizenship for a foreign national. You would have to securely store thousands of these images for reporting purposes. It would be a legal and technological impediment and extra cost involving a large amount of effort for very little payoff. This was easier to limit with the online store. They just didn't provide international shipping options.

Why does it not surprise me that someone who coded a newsletter for Drudge Report - a conservative cesspit of a website - is sounding like such a sore loser? Hmm.

(All the websites you linked have a similar conservative slant. I mean, the Washington Post? Seriously? Some people have no shame.)

As a US citizen living abroad I had to provide a scan of my passport before they accepted my donation.

I'm sure you can donate money if your intent on bypassing all the checks, but that's negligible in the grand scheme.

> Too bad that there were no checks in place to determine who is actually contributing.

Why is this bad, exactly? Political leaders in the US undertake actions and policies that can affect the entire world, esp. in regards to military action, so why wouldn't some people abroad want to donate to a campaign? Also, given that there are several million non-citizen residents of the US, they deserve just as much input into the political process of the society they are a part of.

Its bad if the law states that it isn't allowed and the other candidates are following this law.

Well, the legality of a thing doesn't determine whether or not it is desirable. Why do you feel that non citizens donating to a campaign is bad outside of legality?

Because it's not their government, and it opens a very large door to foreign governments trying to influence elections. Really, this is a question?

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