Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against ActBlue, alleging the major Democrat fundraising platform misled consumers and enabled fraudulent and potentially illegal political donations.
Filed in Tarrant County, the suit accuses ActBlue of violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by falsely claiming it had implemented safeguards to prevent unlawful contributions—including those from foreign nationals—while continuing to allow payment methods that can obscure donor identity.
According to the state’s petition, ActBlue told Congress and the public it had stopped accepting gift cards and certain prepaid debit cards amid scrutiny from investigators. But the attorney general’s office alleges those representations were false, claiming the platform resumed accepting such payments after the scrutiny subsided.
“We want American elections controlled by donations from US citizens, not from overseas,” Paxton told Chris Salcedo in an interview Monday morning. “And that’s why we’ve always been suspicious, just because of the large volume of donations that ActBlue seems to get, that other countries are illegally funneling money through ActBlue, and the Democrats are accepting it.”
ActBlue has processed more than $16 billion in donations since its founding in 2004 and serves as a central fundraising tool for Democrat candidates and causes nationwide.
The lawsuit also leans on outside reporting and prior investigations into alleged donor fraud on the platform.
In 2023, O’Keefe Media Group released an undercover report suggesting donations made through ActBlue were attributed to individuals who did not actually make them. In one case, an elderly woman denied making thousands of dollars in contributions listed under her name. Separate reporting found similar irregularities, including instances where individuals tied to large numbers of donations appeared unlikely to have the means to make them.
The attorney general’s office says it has independently corroborated aspects of those allegations as part of its investigation.
The petition further cites internal legal memoranda, first reported by The New York Times, in which outside counsel warned that ActBlue’s practices could expose it to allegations of “knowing and willful” violations of election law and create a “substantial risk” that impermissible foreign contributions were being processed.
State investigators also conducted their own testing by making donations through ActBlue using gift cards—including one purchased with cash under a pseudonym—and found the transactions were processed without issue.
The lawsuit alleges ActBlue weakened internal fraud controls over time and placed responsibility on donors and campaigns to track contribution limits rather than enforcing them automatically.
ActBlue pushed back on the lawsuit, characterizing it as politically motivated.
“This is a thinly veiled attempt to distract from Ken Paxton’s numerous legal and ethical issues ahead of next month’s runoff,” said De’Andra Roberts-LaBoo, a spokesperson for ActBlue. “If he and his Republican allies actually cared about donor fraud, they would work to strengthen security standards across the board, including within their own operations, rather than targeting ActBlue. Our platform has done more than any other, regardless of party, to prevent improper donations and protect donors. Full stop.”
Paxton is seeking temporary and permanent injunctions to block ActBlue from accepting donations via gift cards and prepaid debit cards, along with civil penalties and attorneys’ fees.
