The Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) electronic filing system was knocked offline following reported hacking attempts, disrupting a key campaign-finance disclosure system just one week before the November 3 midterm elections. A hacker or hackers targeted the FEC’s systems, prompting the agency to temporarily shut down web-facing services, according to an email obtained by . The electronic filing system had been unavailable since around 10 p.m.
ET Monday, according to the FEC website. The FEC confirmed to Newsweek that its electronic filing system remained offline Tuesday but did not provide further details about the reported cyberattack. "At this time, we can point to the status update posted to the FEC’s website that the electronic filing system is currently offline and our IT staff are actively working to restore service," Myles Martin, deputy press officer for the FEC, told Newsweek in an email Tuesday.
"The website search for FEC reports is not affected," Martin added. Newsweek reached out to the White House and FBI by email Tuesday for comment. reported that the outage prevents political organizations from electronically filing the FEC's 24-hour and 48-hour spending reports, disclosures that provide information about spending on individual races during the final days before an election. The agency has not publicly identified who may be responsible for the reported hacking attempts or said whether its systems were successfully breached or information was accessed.
The disruption comes at a particularly sensitive point in the election calendar, with voters set to decide control of Congress in the November 3 midterm elections. The midterms are especially consequential because they will determine control of Congress for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term, shaping Republicans’ ability to advance his agenda and Democrats’ power to block legislation, conduct oversight and pursue investigations. The FEC administers and enforces federal campaign-finance law and collects disclosures from candidates, political parties and political committees.
The affected electronic filing system is used to submit campaign-finance information, including reports that can reveal how money is being spent in competitive races. The outage is therefore primarily a campaign-finance transparency and disclosure issue, rather than a disruption to the mechanics of voting. The FEC does not administer American elections, run polling places, operate voting equipment or count ballots.
The outage should have no effect on voters' ability to cast ballots. Past campaign-finance reports also remain searchable despite the electronic filing outage, according to the agency's statement to Newsweek. The timing could nevertheless temporarily reduce the amount of new spending information available during the campaign's closing stretch.
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