A Week Before the U.S. Midterms, the System for Disclosing Political Ad Spending Goes Down
The electronic system through which U.S. parties and political committees report their final campaign spending has stopped working. When checked at 11:08 a.m. Korean time on October 28, the Federal Election Commission's official status record still showed repairs in progress. The FEC began investigating the outage on the night of October 26, Eastern time, and announced at 8:17 p.m. EDT on October 27 that it had identified the problem and was implementing a fix. FEC's official incident record
With the November 3 midterm elections approaching, a special reporting period requires rapid disclosure of new spending. The FEC has designated October 15 through November 1 this year as the period for 24-hour independent-expenditure reports. If a party spends an aggregate of $1,000 or more on a particular election—for example, on advertisements supporting or opposing a candidate without coordinating with that candidate—it must report the spending by the following night after the advertisement becomes public. 2026 reporting schedule, Party reporting requirements, Definition of independent expenditures
Reuters reported on October 27 that it had seen an email saying the FEC had been targeted by a hacker or hackers. For campaign-finance professionals, the immediate problem was their inability to transmit reports. Steven Mele of MBA Consulting said election-related disclosure would be reduced until the system was repaired. The FEC oversees the finances of candidates and political groups rather than administering voting, and its official incident record did not specify the cause. Reuters, FEC incident record
The FEC said users could still search past reports, but the online forms, submission system and outside filing tools used to receive new reports were affected. The Washington Examiner also reported disruption to candidates' and political action committees' short-term financial filings. Voters could look up previous spending even as the system could not accept the new spending reports groups were trying to submit. Systems affected by the FEC outage, Reuters, Washington Examiner
The reports disclose more than an overall total. The FEC requires independent-expenditure filings to identify the vendor paid, the purpose of the spending, the date an advertisement became public, the amount and the candidate supported or opposed. Disruption therefore affects the public's ability to connect advertisements promoting or attacking a candidate with the groups paying for them and the amounts they spend. Filers subject to electronic-filing requirements must submit these reports electronically. FEC guide to required reporting fields, Electronic-filing requirements
EEJE Editorial Analysis: Political groups must report their final campaign-advertising expenditures by the next day, and the FEC receives and publishes that information. This outage occurred at the point of receipt. While voters are deciding whom to elect, the process that tells them who spent money to influence that choice is being delayed. FEC reporting period and deadlines, Required expenditure disclosures, Reporting on the filing disruption