The US Federal Election Commission (FEC) took its public-facing electronic filing services offline following a reported attempt to breach its systems, leading to disruption of its campaign finance disclosures ahead of the 3 November midterm elections.
According to Reuters, an email sent by an FEC electronic filings officer to campaign compliance firms on Monday, 26 October, said the agency had identified an attempted breach and temporarily shut down its web-facing services.
The outage began at approximately 10 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday. The FEC subsequently said its IT staff were working to restore the electronic filing system.
In a status update on Tuesday evening, the agency said the issue had been identified, and a fix was being implemented. The system was still unavailable at the time of Reuters' reporting.
The FEC hasn’t publicly confirmed the cause of the disruption. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the agency declined to comment on whether the outage involved a cyberattack.
Campaign Finance Disclosures Disrupted
The outage prevented political organisations from submitting mandatory campaign finance reports through the FEC’s electronic filing system. These include 24-hour and 48-hour reports that provide information about political spending and certain contributions made close to an election. The disclosures allow journalists, watchdog organisations and the public to monitor campaign financing as candidates enter the final days of campaigning.
The disruption came as political groups ramped up spending ahead of the midterm elections. According to a report by AdImpact, a political advertising tracker, spending on advertising and future ad reservations had reached approximately $11.21 billion, surpassing the previous record set during the 2024 election cycle.
Super political action committees (super PACs) and other political groups are among those spending heavily on the races. The interruption to electronic filing limited the availability of new disclosures at a time when campaign finance reporting was particularly active.
US Voting Systems Not Affected
The disruption concerned campaign finance reporting rather than the administration of elections. The FEC oversees federal campaign finance disclosures, including information about fundraising and spending by candidates and political committees. It does not administer elections or operate the voting systems used to cast ballots. The outage is not expected to affect voters’ ability to vote in the 3 November midterm elections.
The hosts of the FEC’s official website previously filed reports and information about the agency’s work. Its electronic filing system remained unavailable during the outage.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) referred questions about the incident to the FEC. The cause of the disruption and the full extent of any attempted intrusion had not been publicly established when the report was published.
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