Barack Obama’s campaign website has no way of determining whether campaign contributions meet the FEC guidelines. This was just demonstrated by a reader who performed a little experiment (cost — $5). Here’s her story.

I just donated $5 to Barack Obama’s campaign using the info below. No 3-digit security code was requested for my VISA card. As soon as my donation was confirmed I opened my electronic bank acct and the debit appeared.

MY DONATION INFO:

MY CONFIRMATION:

MY BANK DEBIT – WHICH APPEARED ON MY ELECTRONIC STATEMENT WITHIN 2 MIN. OF MAKING DONATION:

Donations for which the donor name and credit card name do not match are easily made on the Obama website. The McCain website rejects such donations. Bottom line — McCain is being honest and Obama is cheating on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) rules. How do we know that Obama is deliberately cheating?

Mark Steyn reports:

….the AVS security checks most merchant processors use to screen out fraudulent transactions (and, incidentally, overseas customers) were intentionally disabled by the Obama campaign – and thus their web donation page enables fraudulent (and/or foreign) donations. The McCain campaign retains the AVS system used by other online retailers and thus rejects fake names and fake addresses. Advantage: Obama!

Related articles:

No Quarter — Campaign Contribution Limits? No Problem, Just Contribute Online.

Obama reneged on his commitment to use public financing and has gone on to raise over $600 million dollars, including a reported $150 million just last month.

Obama claims that much of the record-breaking donations come from small donors, often via his Web site. The symbolism of both the size and number of those donations has taken on mythical proportions. However, it is very worrisome that Obama doesn’t share the details of how those Web donations are procured.

In fact, if the details are as suspected, Obama has found an “inventive” way to fund his campaign and to subvert campaign finance laws….

You can contribute to Obama’s campaign via his Web site in amounts from $5 to $2,300, in each instance. There appear to be no sensible checks in the submission form, and there’s only a simple note at the bottom of the page that states that an individual can only contribute up to $2,300 per election and that the contribution made on the Web site page “is designated for the general election.”

But, this reminder is virtually meaningless since no wording on the Web site page that states that donors must use their real names. Nor does the Obama donation page require that you confirm that you are using your real name.

In other words, in Barack Obama’s world, your decision to obey FEC (Federal Election Commission) laws is entirely voluntary.

Most alarming is that there appears to be NO mechanism on Obama’s donation page to ensure that the name of the donor matches the name on the credit card….

This is campaign money laundering made easy. There is no validation that the name and address entered match the credit card’s information. Nor was the security code on the card requested.

Ignore the campaign aspect of this for a moment.

The Obama Web site is obviously set up to bypass common security checks: There is no Address Verification Check (the 3-4 digit number on your card). And there is no requirement to match your billing address, no City-State-ZIP code match.

Since none of these is verified by the Web site’s programming system, it is very likely that the site is a dream for anyone whose donation comes from another country. Foreign donors, merely by using their credit cards, can donate just as easily as U.S. donors….

Power Line — Who is John Galt?: A reader describes the ease of making illegal donations (name of donor and credit card do not match) on the Obama website, and being prevented from doing the same thing on the McCain website.