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The US Federal Election Commission (FEC) has taken its electronic filing system offline following a suspected cyberattack. The disruption comes just one week before the November 3 midterm elections.
According to an email reviewed by Reuters, an unidentified attacker attempted to breach the agency’s systems. The incident has disrupted campaign finance disclosures at a critical stage of the election campaign.
The FEC said its information technology staff were working to restore the service. Users could still search the website for previously submitted reports, but they could not file new electronic disclosures.
The agency’s filing system went offline at around 10 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday, October 26. By Tuesday evening, a status update said officials had identified the issue and were implementing a fix. However, the filing system remained unavailable at that time.
An FEC electronic filings officer told campaign compliance firms that the agency had temporarily shut down its public-facing services because of an attempted breach.
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The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) referred questions about the incident to the FEC. The agency did not immediately provide further details.
The outage has interrupted mandatory campaign finance reporting. Political committees and other organisations use the system to submit reports on certain spending within 24 or 48 hours.
These disclosures help journalists, watchdog groups and voters track political spending. They also identify the groups financing campaigns and the races receiving the most money.
Steven Mele, president and CEO of political finance compliance firm MBA Consulting Group, said he had never seen a similar incident in his 26 years in the field.
The disruption does not affect the voting process itself. The FEC oversees federal campaign finance disclosures, but it does not administer elections or operate voting systems.
However, the outage limits public access to new spending information during the final days of campaigning. That leaves voters with less timely information about political money and its sources.
The disruption comes as political spending reaches unprecedented levels ahead of the November 3 elections.
Political advertising spending and future reservations have reached approximately $11.21 billion, according to AdImpact. That figure exceeds the roughly $11.2 billion spent across all races during the 2024 election cycle, including the presidential contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
Super political action committees, known as super PACs, account for a substantial share of outside campaign spending. These groups can raise unlimited funds from individuals and corporations for independent political expenditures, subject to applicable campaign finance rules.
Dark money groups also play a role in election spending. Their funding structures can make it difficult for the public to identify the original sources of some political contributions.
Brendan Glavin, research director at the nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets, said super PACs and dark money groups had spent an average of more than $50 million per day during the previous week.
He added that reported spending exceeded $250 million on October 20 alone.
Glavin described the filing-system outage as a significant concern because the reports provide essential information about campaign spending.
“These are the key reports that tell us what is happening,” Glavin said. He explained that the disclosures help the public understand where political money is going and who is spending it.
The timing is particularly important as candidates and outside groups increase their spending before Election Day. Delays in reporting could make it harder for voters and researchers to follow financial activity in competitive races.
The November 3 midterms will determine whether Republicans retain their majorities in Congress for the next two years. The outage has added another challenge to the final stretch of an election cycle marked by record advertising spending.
Until the FEC restores its filing system, the public may face delays in accessing new campaign finance disclosures. The agency’s website continues to provide access to previously filed reports, but the interruption limits the flow of new information.
