FEC website down before midterms

The Federal Election Commission temporarily suspended its public website on Monday evening, halting the filing of mandatory spending reports just days before the US midterm elections. The outage prevents political groups from submitting data required every 24 and 48 hours to track expenditures in specific races.

An email sent by the FEC to a campaign compliance firm stated, “We have a bad actor trying to breach FEC systems. As a result, we’ve had to temporarily suspend our web-facing services,” according to Reuters. The website displayed a status message indicating the system was down after 10:15 p.m. EST on Monday. An update posted at 8:17 p.m. EST on Tuesday read, “The issue has been identified and a fix is being implemented.”

The disruption comes as the current midterms have become the most expensive US elections in history. Political advertising tracker AdImpact reports that roughly $11.21 billion has been spent on advertising and future reservations so far. This figure surpasses the previous record of $11.2 billion set during the 2024 elections, which included $3.2 billion in the presidential race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

Independent political committees known as Super PACs and dark money groups are driving much of this spending. These entities can accept unlimited funds from wealthy individuals and corporations with few restrictions. Brendan Glavin, research director at the nonpartisan campaign watchdog OpenSecrets, stated that these groups have spent an average of $50 million per day over the past week.

Democratic FEC Commissioner Dara Lindenbaum addressed the incident on X, clarifying that the issue does not involve voter files or registration. “This has NOTHING to do with voter files or voter registration. Those are maintained by the states. The FEC only handles federal campaign finance findings,” she wrote. She added, “We are working hard to restore the systems as soon as possible.”

The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency both referred questions regarding the incident to the FEC. The commission does not administer elections but oversees federal campaign finance disclosures. The timing of the outage is critical because it is the primary mechanism for tracking where money is spent in the final days before the November 3 vote.

Glavin described the situation as “a big deal.” He noted that in the last days of an election, the FEC’s filing system is the only way to keep track of where the money is being spent.