FEC campaign finance system goes offline after breach attempt days before midterms

The Federal Election Commission took its electronic filing system offline after detecting a breach attempt around 10 p.m. ET Monday, and the platform remained down as of early Wednesday, just days before the US midterm elections on November 3. The outage leaves campaigns unable to file the 24- and 48-hour spending reports that are the public’s only window into last-minute election spending in the most expensive cycle on record.

An FEC electronic filings official told campaign compliance firms Monday night that a “bad actor” was attempting to breach the agency’s systems, according to an email obtained by Reuters. “We have a bad actor trying to breach FEC systems,” the email read. “As a result, we’ve had to temporarily suspend our web-facing services.” A status message on the FEC website showed the system was down after 10 p.m. EST Monday. The agency posted an update at 8.17pm EST on Tuesday stating, “The issue has been identified and a fix is being implemented.” But the system remained offline early Wednesday. The FEC told CNBC its IT staff is working to restore the service.

Outage blocks late-election spending disclosures

In the final 20 days before an election, candidate committees must report contributions or loans of $1,000 or more within 48 hours, while political committees and outside groups must disclose certain spending within 24 hours. Those rules are designed to give voters a near-real-time view of the money flooding into races when it matters most. The outage prevents organizations from filing those reports, which track how political groups and candidates are spending on specific races, cutting off a key transparency mechanism at a critical moment. For example, Elon Musk’s America PAC reported nearly $6.8 million in independent expenditures for communications disseminated October 20, according to a CNBC analysis of FEC filings. Spending on that scale normally becomes public almost immediately, but with the filing system down, new money can pour into races while the public stays in the dark. Political committees and other outside groups reported nearly $610 million in independent expenditures for communications disseminated from October 20 through October 26, an average of about $87 million a day, according to a CNBC analysis of FEC filings. Super PACs — independent political committees that can accept unlimited sums from wealthy individuals and corporations and spend on campaigns with few restrictions — and dark money groups have spent an average of $50 million per day over the past week, per Brendan Glavin of OpenSecrets. “It’s a big deal,” said Glavin, OpenSecrets’ research director. “In the last days of the election, this is the only way for us to keep track of where the money is being spent.” The reported breach comes as the 2026 midterms become the most expensive US election cycle on record by political advertising, with $11.21 billion spent or reserved as of Monday night, per AdImpact. That surpasses the previous record of $11.2 billion spent in the 2024 elections, including $3.2 billion in the presidential race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Previously filed reports remain searchable.

The FEC does not administer US elections; it handles federal campaign finance. Democratic Commissioner Dara Lindenbaum wrote on X that the issue has nothing to do with voter files or voter registration, which are maintained by the states. “The FEC only handles federal campaign finance findings,” Lindenbaum wrote. She added, “We are working hard to restore the systems as soon as possible.” The outage hits an already weakened agency. The FEC has had just two of its six seats filled since October 2025 and has lacked the four commissioners needed to take official action since May 2025. With the commission unable to take official action for over a year, the agency has operated with diminished leadership even as record sums flow through the political system. Career staff have continued processing disclosures and running day-to-day operations despite the leadership vacuum.

No word on culprit or data exposure

The FEC has not said who was behind the reported breach attempt, whether anyone gained access, or whether any data was compromised. The FBI and CISA referred questions to the FEC or did not respond to requests for comment.