The Federal Election Commission restored its electronic filing system on Wednesday night, ending a nearly 41-hour outage caused by a cyberattack that temporarily hid last-minute political spending from public view just six days before the November 3 midterm elections. The FEC filing system restored on October 28, 2026, means super PACs and other political groups can once again file the mandatory 24-hour and 48-hour reports that show how much money is being spent to help or hurt candidates in the final days of the campaign.
Reuters reported that the commission told users most of the services affected by the outage had been restored. The agency had taken its web-facing filing services offline after an unidentified attacker tried to breach its systems, and campaign finance managers had to reset their passwords before logging back in. The FEC did not announce details of the cause of the outage, and Reuters could not establish the motive for the hacking effort.
The outage began on Monday night. The FEC posted a notice just after 10 p.m. ET on Monday, October 26, saying it was investigating a problem that caused major outages across the systems that process electronic campaign filings. An FEC officer told campaign compliance firms late on Monday that the agency had taken those services offline after a "bad actor" tried to breach its systems, according to an email reviewed by Reuters.
By Tuesday evening, the commission said the issue had been identified and a fix was being implemented, but the system remained unavailable through Wednesday. Watchdogs warned the public had lost sight of the fastest-moving money in American politics.
On Wednesday night, the system came back. The FEC told users that most of the services affected by the outage had been restored, and campaign finance managers were told to reset their passwords before logging in, according to an email reviewed by Reuters. The commission did not return requests for comment on Wednesday, and both the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI referred questions to the FEC.
The Federal Election Commission is the agency that tracks the spending of candidates and political committees. Its electronic filing system is the public window into that spending: when a super PAC buys television advertising, funds a digital campaign or pays for mail in a close race, it must report that spending, and in the final weeks before an election those reports are due within 24 or 48 hours. Journalists, researchers, rival campaigns and voters use those filings to see who is spending, how much, and in which races.
That window matters most in the last days of a campaign. OpenSecrets research director Brendan Glavin told Reuters that super PACs and dark money groups spent an average of more than $50 million a day in the week before the outage, and that more than $250 million in spending was reported on October 20 alone. When the filing system went dark, that information stopped, even though the spending itself did not.
The midterms will decide control of Congress for the next two years. The FEC does not run elections or count votes, so ballots were never at risk; what was at risk was transparency.
The restoration of the FEC filing system does not erase the gap the outage created. Reports that could not be filed during the nearly 41 hours offline will now need to be submitted, and watchdogs will be watching whether the filings that emerge cover the full period of the blackout or leave holes in the record. The password resets required before logging in are a reminder that the commission treated the incident as a security event, not a routine technical failure.
What the restoration does mean is that the public window is open again: new reports should appear as groups spend in the final six days before November 3, and researchers can begin reconstructing what was spent while the system was down.
The commission has not said what kind of attack it faced, what data may have been accessed, or whether any filing data was altered.
Campaign finance watchdogs were blunt about the damage done while the system was down. Molly White, a campaign finance watchdog who tracks crypto and Big Tech political spending, told Reuters: "We didn't have access to the last-minute spending, which is really ramped up as the election draws nearer. We have no visibility into that when the filing systems are down." She added: "It's pretty devastating this close to the election."
Hilary Braseth, executive director of the nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets, said in a statement released before the system was restored: "Disclosure delayed is disclosure denied. When hundreds of millions of dollars in outside money flood political airwaves in the final days before an election, transparency is not an optional luxury, it is a fundamental public safeguard."
White also noted that the timing, and the lack of information from the FEC, stirred speculation across the industry. "It's hard to say with any real information that that's what happened, but it's certainly I think where people's minds go very quickly," she said, referring to the idea that unscrupulous actors could use an outage to hide unpopular last-minute spending. Reuters stressed that it could not establish the motive for the hacking effort.
On the technical side, Kyle Sandy, cybersecurity director at IT security firm Logically, said taking the system offline was the right call. "It tells me the FEC detected something they couldn't immediately scope and chose a known outage over an unknown risk," Sandy said, giving the agency time to ensure none of its data was altered by the hackers before bringing it back online.
This story matters because elections are not only about who votes, but about what voters know before they vote. In the final days of a campaign, outside groups can spend tens of millions in a single day, and the FEC's filing system is the only reason the public can follow that money.
It also matters as a warning about election infrastructure: the FEC's systems are not vote-counting systems, but public trust systems, and a single attempted breach took the disclosure system offline for nearly two days.
The filings that emerge will show whether the blackout concealed anything unusual, and the commission's eventual explanation will shape how seriously Congress takes the security of such systems.
Committees are expected to file backlogged reports, which watchdogs will compare against advertising already visible in the public domain to check for gaps, while the FEC faces questions about the cause, whether any data was altered, and what has changed to prevent a repeat.
Spending will only accelerate in the final six days, testing the restored system with the heaviest filing load of the cycle.
For related coverage, see our earlier report on the outage itself: FEC hack hits US campaign finance filing system days before midterms. Also read our coverage of the Alaska ballot row: Trump demands Peltola off Alaska ballot in fake Dan Sullivan fraud row. More US news is available on the US News Pulse homepage.
Yes. The Federal Election Commission restored its electronic filing system on Wednesday night, October 28, 2026, after nearly 41 hours offline, and told users most affected services had been restored.
The FEC took its web-facing filing services offline after an unidentified attacker tried to breach its systems. The commission has not announced details of the cause, and Reuters could not establish the motive.
No. The FEC does not administer US elections or count votes, so the outage should have no effect on voters' ability to cast ballots on November 3.
Super PACs and other groups could not file mandatory 24-hour and 48-hour reports during the outage. In the week before it, such groups were spending an average of more than $50 million a day, with more than $250 million reported on October 20 alone.
Committees are expected to file backlogged reports now that the system is restored, and watchdogs will check whether those filings fully cover the blackout period.
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