Maine’s campaign finance watchdog fined ActBlue $100,000 on Wednesday, handing the national Democratic online fundraising platform a stiff penalty for filing a recent report two weeks late.

The fine, which the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices approved by a 4-0 vote Wednesday, is among the largest penalties the commission has ever assessed and is the largest for a registered political group that missed a published deadline.

The penalty was lowered significantly from a preliminary assessment of $683,731 after commission staff wrote in a memo that ActBlue “did make an effort” to complete the necessary paperwork after encountering processing errors, but it “simply wasn’t enough to get the job done on time.”

A larger fine would be “disproportionately high” compared to the harm to the public while a lesser fine would still have the effect of incentivizing ActBlue to stay in compliance in the future, staff wrote in the memo delivered to commissioners before their decision.

Jeff Hunter, an attorney for Act Blue, acknowledged fault at the commission’s meeting Wednesday morning, attributing the late filing to a “kind of a perfect storm.”

“They had some staffing errors,” Hunter said. “They had some system errors. They had a lot of reports due at the same time. That’s not to excuse a non-filing here, but to put it in perspective they were using this system for this state, the federal system for the federal jurisdiction and others for the July 15 quarterly.”

ActBlue is a national fundraising platform that facilitates donations to Democratic candidates and committees. The group was required to file a quarterly campaign finance report with the ethics commission on July 15 covering three months worth of donations during which it received $1.2 million for candidates and committees in Maine.

The report was not filed until July 29, according to ethics commission Executive Director Jonathan Wayne, who said the preliminary penalty assessed was so high because of the amount of donations, the length of the delay and because it was the second late filing by ActBlue this year.

ActBlue said in an August letter to the commission that it encountered processing delays trying to upload a uniquely large number of transactions — nearly 13,000 — to the commission’s online system.

Wayne acknowledged there can be challenges with uploading data to the system, and also noted that the ethics commission is expecting to roll out a new online filing system in December.

But he said commission staff had the overall view that “had the PAC started earlier and given more staff time to the effort, and had better channels of communication, they could have filed the report earlier.”

ActBlue, based out of Massachusetts, experienced some staff departures after the 2024 elections, Hunter said Wednesday, saying that turnover is typical after a major election. The New York Times reported in March that the resignations of at least seven high-level officials were raising concerns about the group’s future.

Hunter said new hires and initiatives are expected to improve ActBlue’s compliance with campaign finance requirements going forward.

“So, I don’t think you’re going to see us before you again with a late filing,” he told the commission.

The $100,000 fine is the third-largest penalty to come from the Maine ethics commission. In 2017, the commission voted to levy $500,000 in fines against a group of ballot question committees for failure to register and file campaign finance reports associated with a referendum to allow a casino in York County, though that was later reduced to $100,000 through a settlement agreement.

In 2018, the commission charged Alpine Initiatives $160,000 for serving as a pass-through for a large contribution to a political party and for failing to register and file a campaign finance report as a political action committee.