# Making an anonymous political contribution **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 11, 2004, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-an-anonymous-political-contribution/268652 "2004-10-11T16:00:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-an-anonymous-political-contribution/268652/1 "2004-10-11T16:00:30Z")
I’m thinking of making a contribution to one of the presidential candidates (since this is GQ, I’ll refrain from mentioning which one, to avoid needless distractions), but I’d like to do so anonymously. I made a contribution to my incumbent senator a while ago, and instantly was put on the party’s mailing list and started receiving more junk mail. I’d like to avoid that. Is it possible/legal to send an anonymous contribution to a political candidate? I assume it’s not, since there are legal limits as to how much one person can contribute. So what would happen if I just sent my candidate a small ($50-$100) money order without my name or return address? Would he have to donate it to charity or something? I suppose I can simply ask, when sending in the check, not to be put on any other mailing lists, but (call me cynical) I just doubt that that would be terribly effective. ---
**Author:** ![duality72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duality72/32/3910_2.png) [@duality72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duality72)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-an-anonymous-political-contribution/268652/2 "2004-10-11T17:04:21Z")
Dunno about legality, but maybe a money order with a fake name and address? Or the name of that annoying person you know who supports the other party? 🙂 Works well for web site registration. ---
**Author:** ![muttrox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a8b319/32.png) [@muttrox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muttrox)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-an-anonymous-political-contribution/268652/3 "2004-10-11T17:28:11Z")
There are limits on how much you can donate to a political candidate. Therefore, I don’t see how you could give anonymously, then there would be nothing to bar the rich from buying elections – or at least, more openly than they do now 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-an-anonymous-political-contribution/268652/4 "2004-10-11T17:51:01Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > Is it possible/legal to send an anonymous contribution to a political candidate? I assume it’s not, since there are legal limits as to how much one person can contribute. You assume correctly. > [@](#): > > So what would happen if I just sent my candidate a small ($50-$100) money order without my name or return address? Would he have to donate it to charity or something? He _should_. If it’s for a small amount, he might not, but he _should_. By federal law, campaigns are required to gather and maintain information about not only the names and addresses, but also the _employer_ and _occupation_, of every one of their contributors. In practice they’ll take your money without the employer and occupation, but they certainly shouldn’t without the name and address. > [@](#): > > I suppose I can simply ask, when sending in the check, not to be put on any other mailing lists, but (call me cynical) I just doubt that that would be terribly effective. You’re batting 1.000 in terms of correct assumptions! ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-an-anonymous-political-contribution/268652/5 "2004-10-11T18:01:50Z")
[The actual rules:](http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/contrib.htm#Cash%20Contributions) > [@](#): > > Contributions of cash (currency) which in the aggregate exceed $100 from one person are prohibited. If a committee receives a cash contribution exceeding $100, it must promptly return the excess amount to the contributor. If an anonymous cash contribution over $50 is received, the amount in excess of $50 must be used for some purpose unrelated to federal elections. 11 CFR 110.4©. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-an-anonymous-political-contribution/268652/6 "2004-10-11T20:30:29Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > I suppose I can simply ask, when sending in the check, not to be put on any other mailing lists, but (call me cynical) I just doubt that that would be terribly effective. Actually, it would be effective. As a person who has done this (I’m managing 3 political databases for this current election), I can assure you that we **do not** want to send additional mailings to people who do not want to receive them – those mailing are quite expensive to do, you know. We work hard to maximize the return on mailings; sending them only to likely responders is an important part of that. However, most political campaigns are heavily run with volunteer labor. And such a request is rare. So it’s quite likely that the volunteer doing the data entry\* hasn’t done one of these before, and may not code it properly. So there is some chance that you could still get additional mailings from them due to such an error. - Data entry, because usually campaigns enter every contribution onto a database. They just have a Do-Not-Contact flag to mark that they don’t want additional mail, etc. Campaigns often _have to_ enter every contribution, either by legal requirements (campaign finance laws) or by their accountant (to prevent a dishonest volunteer from ‘skimming’ contributions). ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-an-anonymous-political-contribution/268652/7 "2004-10-11T22:35:52Z")
They may put me on their own “do not contact” list but could still rent/sell my name to other organizations. That’s what happened in the case of the contribution to my senator. Her office didn’t send more mail, a bunch of other, similarly inclined, organizations did. But from the cite **SmackFu** found, it looks like I could donate up to $50 anonymously, which is about the level I was planning to give. Hmmmm… ---
**Author:** ![JerH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bb73d2/32.png) [@JerH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerH)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-an-anonymous-political-contribution/268652/8 "2004-10-12T13:00:38Z")
I don’t know if this helps, but I gave $50 to Kerry a few months ago and they haven’t bothered me at all.