University Democrats of North Dakota processes online contributions through ActBlue, a payment processor for progressive candidates and committees. When a contributor supports University Democrats via ActBlue, they are actually contributing to ActBlue who in turn contributes to University Democrats minus processing fees. Because of this structure, contributions received via ActBlue are reported collectively in campaign finance disclosures as “ActBlue North Dakota” and not by the individual donor. Currently, there is no method for a candidate or committee to report the individual donor data despite it being provided by ActBlue.
North Dakota Senate Bill 2299 would define services like ActBlue as a “conduit” and require disclosure of individual donors contributing through a conduit. Uninformed commenters say that ActBlue is an attempt to mask out-of-state donors; this is false, as there isn’t even a reporting method available for donations received through a conduit. University Democrats fully supports this legislation, as it’s important to keep campaign contributions transparent. In the interest of transparency, we will voluntarily disclose information on the individuals donating to us through ActBlue. Twelve donations totaling $560 were made via ActBlue, $22.16 in processing fees were assessed, and we received a net total of $537.84. The list of donors and their contributions is available in this PDF.