Obama campaign haul sparks questions

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Barack Obama's staggering $150 million September contribution haul raises questions about donor vetting, critics say.

Spurred by Republican critics who say they were able to use Internet campaign sites to make contributions using obviously phony names such as "Osama bin Laden" and "Saddam Hussein," federal election officials are being urged by members of both major parties to examine allegedly lax screening procedures, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

Although the newspaper estimated only 1 percent of Obama's record September total may be the result of fraudulent donations, the haul's gigantic scale shows that the booming phenomenon of online donations in general needs to be examined for security, critics contend.

"There is so much money coming in and yet very little ability to say with certainty that you know who is giving it," Sean Cairncross, the Republican National Committee's chief counsel, told the Post.

The Obama campaign told the Post that it runs twice-daily sweeps of new donations, looking for irregularities. It said that in September, $1.8 million in online contributions were flagged with $353,000 refunded. One-tenth of 1 percent were marked for refund, the newspaper said.