Why make a political contribution using a phony name

NY Times:

Last December, someone using the name “Test Person,” from “Some Place, UT,” made a series of contributions, the largest being $764, to Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign totaling $2,410.07.

Someone identifying himself as “Jockim Alberton,” from 1581 Leroy Avenue in Wilmington, Del., began giving to Mr. Obama last November, contributing $10 and $25 at a time for a total of $445 through the end of February.

The only problem? There is no Leroy Avenue in Wilmington. And Jockim Alberton, who listed his employer and occupation as “Fdsa Fdsa,” does not show up in a search of public records.

An analysis of campaign finance records by The New York Times this week found nearly 3,000 donations to Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee, from more than a dozen people with apparently fictitious donor information. The contributions represent a tiny fraction of the record $450 million Mr. Obama has raised. But the questionable donations — some donors were listed simply with gibberish for their names — raise concerns about whether the Obama campaign is adequately vetting its unprecedented flood of donors.

It is unclear why someone making a political donation would want to enter a false name. Some perhaps did it for privacy reasons. Another, more ominous possibility, of course, is fraud, perhaps in order to donate beyond the maximum limits.

There is no evidence that questionable contributions amount to anything more than a small portion of Mr. Obama’s fund-raising haul. The Times’s analysis, conducted over a few days and looking for obvious anomalies, like names or addresses with all consonants, identified about $40,000 in suspect contributions that had not been refunded by the campaign as of its last filing with the Federal Election Commission, in September.

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I don't think the reporter knows whether the questionable contributions make up more than a small amount, because they were just focusing on the obviously bogus names or locations. As I have noted before the Obama campaign is sending bulk email solicitations to foreigners who are ineligible to contribute to US campaigns and suggesting donations in amounts that do not have to be reported. It would be hard for the Times to verify these contributions without access to the flow of funds.

I once drafted an indictment of a guy for securities fraud in which one of the fraud counts was that he identified himself as someone else to the purchaser. The person he said he was had a license to sell securities but the seller did not. One of the things I liked about that fraud count was that there is just no reasonable explanation for using someone else's name in a transaction like that.

If making a campaign contribution under a false name is not a criminal offense , it should be. It is a fraudulent campaign finance practice. Knowingly soliciting them or accepting them should also be an offense.