Overview
- The Federal Election Commission’s electronic filing system, which went offline late Monday, remains unavailable while agency IT staff work to restore service.
- An internal FEC email reviewed by Reuters said a “bad actor” attempted to breach web‑facing systems, prompting officials to temporarily shut down public filing services.
- Previously submitted campaign finance reports remain searchable on the FEC website, but organizations cannot submit the required 24‑hour and 48‑hour disclosures.
- Federal cybersecurity and law‑enforcement bodies had not issued public details about the incident as it unfolded and the outage is under investigation.
- The disruption comes during record outside spending by super PACs and dark‑money groups, which will reduce journalists’ and watchdogs’ ability to track last‑minute money and could hinder campaign transparency in the final days before the election while voting processes remain unaffected.