The United States is in the midst of election season. With another election upon us, more technologies are helping federal and state congressional and senate candidates run for office. In the past general election, Facebook, Twitter and Reddit were major players. This year, new kinds of campaign financing may become ubiquitous.
Late last week, the Wisconsin election board announced that it would be studying how the conventional forms of financing political campaigns are evolving and will examine crowdfunding, text messaging and bitcoin donations.
According to the Milwaukee Business Journal, the Government Accountability Board (GAB) decided that there was really no action necessary in regards to crowdfunding and text messages because these practices are already in place. However, it decided to wait to make a final decision on bitcoin funding because it still remains unclear on the federal level.
“As technology evolves, so do the methods for campaigns to raise money,” said Kevin Kennedy, GAB director. “At the federal level and in some states, new statutes and decisions ensure that campaign finance law is followed as committees use these technologies. Wisconsin also needs to do the same.”
It’s likely that bitcoin will become an issue on the campaign trail in both the mid-term and presidential elections, but it still remains to be seen if candidates will embrace bitcoin as a form of funding. Earlier this year, the very first bitcoin political action committee (Bit-PAC) was launched by Dan Backer, a campaign finance lawyer.
“Our effort here is how to align the interests of legislators with that of the Bitcoin community to promote the broader acceptance of Bitcoin, both as an instrument of speech and of commerce,” Backer told the Business Insider at the time.
We reported in January of how Darryl W. Perry became the first 2016 presidential candidate to announce he is accepting bitcoins, litecoins and precious metals. In addition, Eric Brakey, a Republican State Senate candidate, and Blaine Richardson, an independent conservative congressional candidate, have also confirmed they’re accepting the digital currency.
Also, Texas Republican Congressman Steve Stockman confirmed his campaign is accepting bitcoin in his bid to take on Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn.
Internationally, a handful of politicos have started to establish bitcoin wallets for their campaigns: in January, Remus Cernea Constanc, an independent Member of Parliament, announced he would be allowing supporters to donate bitcoins in his bid for president.
It’s possible that well-known, legitimate political candidates are refraining from allowing donors to contribute in bitcoin because they fear the negative publicity it could generate if the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) issued fierce regulations. Also, nationally-known campaigns will garner massive sums of money from average Americans, corporations and lobbyists so it’s possible any bitcoin donations wouldn’t really matter at the moment.
It would be quite interesting if a debate moderator’s first question was: “Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer, decentralized currency, has been making headlines and causing a headache for lawmakers. Where do you stand on the issue of the cryptocurrency?”
