FEC website goes dark after suspected hack, leaving voters in the dark on campaign money ahead of US midterms

The US Federal Election Commission (FEC) website has been targeted by a hacker or hackers, according to an email seen by news agency Reuters, disrupting the agency's electronic filing system a week before the November 3 elections. The cyberattack comes as so-called super PACs and dark money groups spend record amounts in the final days of the races. The elections will determine whether President Donald Trump's Republicans retain their majorities in Congress for the next two years.

In a statement, the FEC said, "at this time, the FEC’s electronic filing system is currently offline and our IT ​staff are actively working to restore service." The agency, which tracks spending by candidates and political committees, said users could ​still search its website for previous reports. It declined to comment further on the outage. The FEC does not ⁠play a role in administering US elections, and the disruption should not affect voters' ability to cast their ballots.

The outage prevents ​organizations from submitting the FEC's 24-hour and 48-hour spending reports, which disclose how much political groups and others are spending on specific races. A status message, opens new tab posted by the FEC said its filing system had been offline since around 10 pm ET on Monday. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency referred questions to the FEC, while the FBI did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

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The FEC issued the notice after campaign finance officers were unable to submit mandatory reports late on Monday. "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 said in an email sent to several campaign compliance firms that night.

The midterm elections have become the most expensive US election in history, with roughly $11.21 billion spent on advertising and future reservations so far, according to political ad tracker AdImpact. The total has surpassed the previous record set during the 2024 elections, when $11.2 billion was spent across all races, including $3.2 ​billion on the presidential contest between ​Trump and former Vice President ⁠Kamala Harris, AdImpact said.

Much of the spending is being driven by super PACs, which can accept unlimited amounts of money from wealthy individuals and corporations, opens new tab and spend as much as they want on campaigns with few ​restrictions.

Spending in recent weeks has surged as Democrats gain ground in several Republican ​strongholds.