An 88-year-old Michigan widow told a local outlet Wednesday that federal records attributing more than $150,000 in ActBlue donations to her name over five years do not reflect money she gave.
Elizabeth Waffle of Milan told Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie LeDuff, writing for the Michigan Enjoyer, that the few dozen small contributions she has made over the past five years appear in federal filings as 14,696 separate donations, roughly eight a day, averaging $9.18.
LeDuff brought the paperwork to her door. Waffle said the total was impossible.
“One hundred and fifty thousand?” she said. “Hell no. I don’t have that kind of money.”
The retiree lives on a modest pension in a trailer she moved into two years ago after her house burned down. She owns an old pickup truck. She does not own a computer, and her internet service is spotty.
According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) data compiled by Bob Cushman, the filings show Waffle donating from the trailer and from an apartment she briefly rented in town, sometimes on the same day. They also list contributions to out-of-state candidates she said she has never heard of.
“This is very abnormal,” Waffle said, looking over the records. “I think it’s wrong, and I think there’s something in there that’s off.”
Among the donations she disputes are 47 to Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Socialist running in Michigan’s Aug. 4 Senate primary. El-Sayed’s campaign has claimed he is the state’s top ActBlue fundraiser, pulling ten times the small-dollar money of Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI). A Detroit News/WDIV poll released this month put Stevens ahead by roughly seven points.
Commenters on X seized on the findings, with one saying that the platform “assigned hundreds of thousands to elderly donors that clearly didn’t give the money.”
“Where is this money really coming from?” the user added. “Needs to be investigated.”
The report comes weeks after ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment rights before the House Administration Committee, declining to answer questions from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) about foreign-linked contributions and the departure of the platform’s legal team. Reps. Bryan Steil (R-WI), Jordan, and James Comer (R-KY) later threatened the platform with contempt over withheld documents.
Similar accounts surfaced in January 2025, when elderly Democrats said thousands of donations had been logged in their names without their knowledge. Steil said at the time that he had shared the committee’s findings with several state attorneys general and remained available to work with state law enforcement.
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