“You’ll simply say, ‘Give what you can afford,’” Brynaert said.

In a difficult economy, those pitches for contributions will be hard to make — especially for first-time candidates, Brynaert and Cornish said. The phone calls are hard even for experienced politicians.

“It’s really tough for me, especially in these tough economic times, to call people and say, ‘Hey, can you give me $50?,’ especially if you’re not getting it back,” Cornish said.

In 2006 more than 100,000 refunds were sent out to individuals and couples making donations, according to Campaign Finance Board reports. More than $2.9 million were for donations to individual candidates, and $3.2 million went to state and local party organizations. Of the money going to parties, Republicans collected $2.3 million and Democrats collected $904,000.

In 2007, Democratic Party units gathered $955,000 and Republican Party units amassed $2.2 million. In both years, refunds for donations to Green and Independence party organizations totaled less than $31,000 combined.