The volume of donations immediately raised eyebrows.
Rather than making a handful of political contributions over several election cycles, the records indicate Waffle supposedly donated multiple times nearly every day for years.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie LeDuff visited Waffle to review the records with her in person. What he found, he said, was not someone who appeared to fit the profile of a six-figure political donor.
Instead, he met an 88-year-old widow whose circumstances painted a dramatically different picture.
Waffle told LeDuff she survives on a pension after losing her home in a fire and now lives in a trailer. She also said she does not own a computer and has unreliable internet service.
When shown the reported donation total, Waffle appeared stunned.
“One hundred and fifty thousand?” she said. “Hell no. I don’t have that kind of money.”
The FEC records reportedly list contributions originating from both her current trailer and a nearby apartment where she temporarily lived after the fire. Some donations were allegedly recorded from both addresses on the same day.
Among the campaigns listed in the records are dozens of donations to Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Socialist candidate competing in Michigan’s August 4 Democratic Senate primary.
Campaign reports have highlighted El-Sayed’s success with grassroots fundraising, claiming he has significantly outraised Democratic rival Rep. Haley Stevens through small-dollar contributions.
Waffle, however, told LeDuff she had never even heard of El-Sayed.
Her case is not the first to attract attention.
Republican investigators and conservative media outlets have pointed to several elderly Americans who similarly claimed their names appeared on thousands of political donations they say they never authorized.
One example cited by investigators involved another donor whose contribution history allegedly exploded from dozens of donations annually to more than 1,500 in a single year—an increase that critics argue defies ordinary giving patterns.
Republican members of Congress have also cited broader data analyses while examining ActBlue’s operations.
According to a House committee review of more than 200 million FEC contribution records, investigators identified donation activity they described as unusually frequent and, in some cases, disproportionate to a donor’s financial profile or previous giving history.
Investigators have referred to the alleged practice as “smurfing,” describing it as the process of breaking large contributions into numerous smaller donations that appear to come from individual Americans, potentially masking the true source of the funds.
A joint House staff report released in April 2025, titled Fraud on ActBlue: How the Democrats’ Top Fundraising Platform Opens the Door for Illegal Election Contributions, alleged that ActBlue loosened certain fraud-prevention safeguards during 2024.
The report also claimed employees were encouraged to approve contributions whenever possible and stated that the platform identified at least 22 significant fraud campaigns, with several allegedly involving foreign-linked money.
Those findings prompted President Donald Trump to sign a presidential memorandum in April 2025 directing the Attorney General and the Treasury Secretary to investigate the allegations surrounding ActBlue’s fundraising system.
The controversy intensified when ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones testified before the House Administration Committee on June 10.
During questioning by Republican lawmakers, Wallace-Jones repeatedly invoked her constitutional right against self-incrimination instead of answering questions regarding foreign-linked donations, internal compliance concerns, and personnel departures.
Committee Republicans viewed that response as deeply troubling.
Wallace-Jones defended her decision in a Washington Post opinion piece published the same day, arguing that invoking the Fifth Amendment was the appropriate legal response given what she characterized as a politically motivated investigation.
The dispute between Congress and ActBlue escalated further weeks later.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer threatened contempt proceedings after ActBlue declined to produce hundreds of subpoenaed documents, citing attorney-client privilege.
According to Republican lawmakers, those records include communications suggesting ActBlue misled Congress about certain compliance issues while retaliating against an employee who allegedly raised internal concerns.
Separately, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suit against ActBlue in April 2026 after investigators reportedly used fabricated identities to submit donations through the platform, which Paxton argues demonstrated weaknesses in its verification procedures.
Republican officials say approximately twenty state attorneys general are now conducting related investigations into the fundraising platform.
After reviewing the campaign finance records presented to her, Waffle remained convinced something was seriously wrong.
“This is very abnormal,” Waffle said, looking over the records LeDuff brought to her door. “I think it’s wrong, and I think there’s something in there that’s off.”
Her story has become one of the most recognizable examples cited by Republicans demanding greater transparency from ActBlue.
Supporters of those investigations argue that if unauthorized donations were attributed to unsuspecting Americans on anything more than an isolated basis, it could represent one of the most significant campaign finance scandals in modern political history.
For now, the investigations continue, subpoenas remain outstanding, and questions surrounding the platform’s fundraising practices have yet to be fully resolved.
But for Elizabeth Waffle, the issue is far more personal.
After losing her home and rebuilding her life in a trailer, she says she never imagined federal records would portray her as one of the Democratic Party’s biggest small-dollar donors.
