U.S. Federal Election Commission system hacked, campaign finance disclosures disrupted ahead of midterm elections

BlockBeats news, October 28 — The U.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC) website recently suffered a hacking attempt, forcing the electronic filing system to be temporarily shut down and affecting campaign finance disclosures ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. FEC officials said in an email that attackers were attempting to breach the agency's systems, necessitating the shutdown of related internet-facing services.

The system has been down since approximately 22:00 Eastern Time on Monday, temporarily preventing organizations from submitting legally required 24-hour and 48-hour expenditure reports. The FEC said IT staff are working to restore service, and the public can still access previously filed reports. The outage does not affect voter balloting, and the FEC itself is not responsible for administering U.S. elections.

According to AdImpact data, advertising spending and future ad reservations for the 2026 election cycle total approximately $11.21 billion, already surpassing the 2024 record of about $11.2 billion. Brendan Glavin, research director at OpenSecrets, said that over the past week, super PACs and dark money groups have spent an average of more than $50 million per day; on October 20 alone, reported related expenditures exceeded $250 million.