to help break it down, i'm joined by adav noti of the non-partisan campaign legal center.ly worked as a lawyer at the federal election commission. welcome, and. gift card -- and thanks for being here. is all of this aboveboard? is this legal? adav: in theory, having small donors contribute in numbers is not just legal, it is a good thing for the system. it helps balance out the disproportionate influence that wealthy donors usually have in campaigns. but what is happening with some of these debate qualification schemes that are going on is that the campaigns are really taking big money, seed money from major donors, and parceling it out to collect these token small contributions, which are not enough to actually run a campaign. these are not small dollar funding campaigns. they are big money funded campaigns. it is another example of big money sort of dominating even the system that is intended to broaden, you know, contributions to smaller donors. amna: is that allowed, to take those donations and parcel them out that way? adav: unfortunately, it is allowed and incentives