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From the AJC: Former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler has had to refund millions of dollars in campaign donations, many to people who said they unknowingly signed up to make recurring contributions.

Until recently, Loeffler used the same system of recurring contributions in her latest political venture.

There was also a pre-checked box with text highlighted in yellow: “Make this a monthly recurring donation.” Only by manually unchecking the box did the donation convert to a one-time gift.

The donate page for her organization Greater Georgia — a voter registration group that also advocates for conservative policies — included options to select the amount of the contribution, plus fields to type in personal information and a credit card number…

…Kristin Oblander, a longtime Democratic fundraiser, said she was not familiar with the practice of requiring donors to opt out of repeat contributions.

“I’ve had my fundraising firm 22 years,” she said, “and we never turned on automatic enrollment for recurring (donations).”

Oblander said people who give relatively small donations, even just $25, are often more budget-conscious than donors with deep pockets who can give $1,000. Automatically enrolling small donors to make multiple contributions can therefore have a much bigger impact, she said.

Read the full story on the Atlanta Journal and Constitution’s website.