Overview
- The Federal Election Commission took its electronic filing platform offline late Monday after staff detected a suspected breach and restored most services Wednesday night following roughly 41 hours of outage.
- During the shutdown campaigns, super PACs and outside groups could not submit required 24‑ and 48‑hour disclosures that report last‑minute contributions and independent expenditures.
- Previously filed reports stayed searchable on the FEC website and the agency said the incident did not affect state‑run voting systems or voters’ ability to cast ballots.
- Federal partners CISA and the FBI have deferred to the FEC for details, and the agency has not publicly named a responsible actor or said whether data were accessed.
- Watchdogs warned that the timing—with record late spending by outside groups and an understaffed, underquorum FEC—creates a transparency gap that could hide important last‑minute funding and complicate post‑election review.