There’s a limit of $50 for anonymous cash donations to a candidate. They could be annoying enough to account for—and vaguely disreputable enough—that they are of no meaningful benefit to the candidate. I don’t recall ever seeing a candidate provide a clear mechanism for such donations, and that may be why (although my experience is limited).
Donating through a straw donor to evade campaign-finance laws is an excellent way to end up in trouble with the feds.
This may encourage corruption /​ bribery instances. For example, companies/​individuals paying bribes to a particular political party in favour of getting government contracts or letting them off the hook from compliance violations.
This happened in India, where government had introduced electoral bonds. The information of donation would not be made public, and as a result donors of such bonds were observed making substantial amount of donations. Supreme Court of India stuck down this mechanism citing violation of right to information and likelihood of corruption instances.
The Court also forced a release of some documents which provided information about donations and donors. See this report. Very interestingly, most of the donations come around allotment of some very big government contracts, mentioned here.
Hi Daniel,
I wonder whether it would be possible to donate anonymously or indirectly via other people to solve the issue.
(US perspective)
There’s a limit of $50 for anonymous cash donations to a candidate. They could be annoying enough to account for—and vaguely disreputable enough—that they are of no meaningful benefit to the candidate. I don’t recall ever seeing a candidate provide a clear mechanism for such donations, and that may be why (although my experience is limited).
Donating through a straw donor to evade campaign-finance laws is an excellent way to end up in trouble with the feds.
This may encourage corruption /​ bribery instances. For example, companies/​individuals paying bribes to a particular political party in favour of getting government contracts or letting them off the hook from compliance violations.
This happened in India, where government had introduced electoral bonds. The information of donation would not be made public, and as a result donors of such bonds were observed making substantial amount of donations. Supreme Court of India stuck down this mechanism citing violation of right to information and likelihood of corruption instances.
The Court also forced a release of some documents which provided information about donations and donors. See this report. Very interestingly, most of the donations come around allotment of some very big government contracts, mentioned here.