Expanded badging, strong enforcement, and what comes after Election Day
With the midterms days away, donors are giving at a pace that matches what’s on the line. Our Account Use Policy exists to protect the trust behind that generosity, and this quarter’s update covers how: ongoing enforcement, new badges that tell donors who they’re supporting, and how we’ll review our work once the cycle ends.
Enforcement Update
During Q3, our team:
- Brought 57 entities into compliance through outreach and education
- Placed 82 entities on active monitoring
- Permanently removed 9 entities from the ActBlue platform
Our approach hasn’t changed: We start with education and outreach, and we act decisively when an entity won’t meet the standard. This work is ongoing and will continue through Election Day and beyond.
Badging: A Clear Signal for Every Donor
In Q2, we introduced Candidate Badging, a simple badge on contribution forms that tells donors exactly when they’re giving directly to a candidate’s campaign or to a group supporting that candidate. This quarter, we’ve extended it across entity types, so donors get a clear, factual signal about who is on the other end of their contribution, whichever kind of entity it is.
Contribution forms now carry one of three badges:
- Candidate: the contribution goes to a candidate’s campaign.
- Official Party Group: the contribution goes to a national or state Democratic Party organization.
- Political Group: the contribution goes to a political action committee (PAC).
The badges build transparency into the giving experience itself, rather than relying only on enforcement after the fact.
Protecting The Ecosystem Together
Community reports remain one of the most important ways we find problems. If you encounter a misleading solicitation, a fake membership claim, an entity impersonating a candidate or party, or anything else that doesn’t seem right, you can flag it on the spot with Report a Form, a tool built into ActBlue Express. Our support site has a step-by-step guide to using it. Every report helps keep the ecosystem trustworthy.
Looking Ahead: Reviewing Our Work and Building for 2028
After Election Day, we’ll begin our post-cycle review, because donors deserve to know their contributions were put to work as promised. We’ll look at how entities stewarded donor dollars and whether that spending matched what they told donors, and we’ll enforce our Account Use Policy standards where it didn’t. We’ll also consult with organizations, vendors, donors, and other stakeholders on how the policy changes we made ahead of this cycle worked in practice. What we hear will inform how we approach the 2028 cycle.
A trustworthy ecosystem is one we build together, and we’re grateful to everyone who helps us protect it.
NOTE: We’ll keep publishing quarterly enforcement updates on this blog, with data on our actions, trends we’re seeing, and how our standards are evolving. You deserve to see the work we’re doing to protect your trust.
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ActBlue is a safe and secure multi-service platform that enables millions of Americans to participate at a grassroots level in the most fundamental pillar of our society: elections. It’s our priority to ensure that donors’ contributions and personal information are protected. ActBlue does not sell donor data or information. Ever.
If you believe in what ActBlue does and want to make sure this infrastructure stays strong, independent, and ready for Election Day, please consider leaving a tip when you make your next contribution. Tips fund the technical infrastructure, fraud prevention, and cybersecurity required to process billions of dollars for thousands of Democratic candidates safely. When you leave a tip, you are ensuring that a local school board candidate or a grassroots organizer has access to the same technology as a national campaign.
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