The National Republican Congressional Committee is tricking would-be Democratic campaign donors into making donations to defeat the candidates they support — with Republican websites that look like they could easily be the campaign pages of Democratic candidates. Unless site visitors read the fine print on the landing pages and the donation forms, it’s very easy to see how they could think these web sites were those of the Democratic candidates.
As ThinkProgress reported on Monday:
“Ray Bellamy of Florida says he was tricked by the page and accidentally made a donation to the NRCC. “It looked legitimate and had a smiling face of Sink and all the trappings of a legitimate site,” Bellamy told the Tampa Bay Times. The look-alike page uses the same colors as Florida candidate Alex Sink’s campaign, with the URL sinkrocongress2014.com. Once entering information, the person is redirected to an NRCC thank-you page.”
The NRCC launched the mock sites to target Democratic candidates they say are “frauds,” but if this is some sort of lame attempt at satire it’s way off the mark. It’s nothing more than a dirty trick and it’s reprehensible.
The NRCC is making a mockery of democracy and they’re swindling people. As this year progresses, be extremely careful not to be duped by fraudulent activities committed by members of the Republican party.
NOTE: PFAW (People for the American Way) has started a petition demanding that the NRCC take down their fraudulent campaign sites AND refund any and all donations that have been received via those sites. You can sign their petition here:
Thank you. I signed the petition.