The Federal Election Commission was forced to shut down its electronic filing system after a suspected hacking attempt disrupted campaign finance reporting just days before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
The security scare comes as Republicans fight to defend their congressional majorities and political groups pour billions of dollars into races across the country.
The Federal Election Commission, which oversees federal campaign finance disclosures, confirmed Tuesday that its electronic filing system was unavailable as technicians scrambled to restore service.
“At this time, the FEC’s electronic filing system is currently offline and our IT staff are actively working to restore service,” the agency said in a statement.
An email obtained by Reuters revealed that federal officials had detected an apparent attempt to infiltrate the agency’s computer systems.
“We have a bad actor attempting to breach FEC systems. As a result, we’ve had to temporarily shut down our web facing services,” an FEC electronic filings officer wrote to several campaign compliance firms Monday night.
The disruption began around 10 p.m. Monday, leaving campaign officials unable to submit mandatory financial disclosures during one of the busiest reporting periods of the election cycle.
By Tuesday evening, the agency reported progress toward restoring its systems.
A status update posted around 8 p.m. said the problem “has been identified and a fix is being implemented.”
However, the filing system remained offline as of Tuesday evening.
The outage has raised concerns among campaign finance professionals because political committees are required to submit certain spending disclosures within 24 or 48 hours.
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Those reports provide a window into last-minute spending by super PACs and other political organizations attempting to influence competitive races.
“I’ve never seen this in 26 years,” said Steven Mele, president and CEO of political finance compliance firm MBA Consulting Group.
Although the filing system was disabled, the Federal Election Commission said previously submitted campaign finance reports remained accessible through its website.
The agency does not administer elections or oversee voting operations, meaning the disruption is not expected to interfere with Americans casting their ballots next Tuesday.
The disruption comes amid record political advertising activity ahead of the midterms, with outside groups pouring enormous sums into competitive House and Senate races.
Political advertising spending and future reservations for the 2026 midterms have reached approximately $11.21 billion, according to tracking firm AdImpact, surpassing the previous record set during the 2024 election cycle.
That election generated roughly $11.2 billion in political advertising spending across races nationwide, including $3.2 billion devoted to the presidential contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
With control of Congress hanging in the balance, the figures underscore the enormous sums flowing into the final stretch of the midterm elections.
Federal officials have not publicly identified the suspected attackers or confirmed whether any sensitive information was compromised.
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