FEC disables electronic filing after attempted system breach, email shows

The U.S. Federal Election Commission temporarily shut down web-facing services after a bad actor attempted to breach its systems, according to an agency email reviewed by Reuters.

The disruption left the campaign-finance regulator’s electronic filing system offline about a week before the November 3 midterm elections. An FEC status message said the outage began around 10 p.m. Eastern time on October 26.

New spending disclosures interrupted

The agency said its IT staff were working to restore service. Previously filed reports could still be searched on its website, but organizations could not submit mandatory 24-hour and 48-hour spending reports through the affected system.

Those reports help show how much political groups and others are spending in individual races. An interruption close to election day can reduce the timely disclosure of new campaign-finance activity.

Campaign finance, not ballot administration

The FEC does not administer elections. The reported disruption was therefore not expected to prevent voters from casting ballots.

The email described an attempt to breach agency systems; the reporting did not establish who was responsible or that the attempted intrusion succeeded. The FEC declined further comment, while the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency referred questions to the commission.

Source

Reuters: Hacker trying to breach U.S. Federal Election Commission system, email shows, October 27, 2026.