US Federal Election Commission shuts down its e-filing system after attempted intrusion a week before the midterms

The US Federal Election Commission took its electronic filing system and other web-facing services offline on the night of Oct 26 2026 (around 10 p.m. ET) after what an FEC filings officer called "a bad actor attempting to breach FEC systems", according to an email seen by Reuters. Campaigns and PACs can't file the 24- and 48-hour spending reports due in the final weeks before the Nov 3 midterms, while searching past reports still works. A person familiar with the investigation told POLITICO the attempted intrusions were noticed and the targeted parts were shut down, calling it narrow and compartmentalized. The FEC hasn't said whether any data was accessed. It doesn't run elections, so voting isn't affected.

Why this severity: Attempted intrusion on a US federal agency; no confirmed data access so far, but campaign finance disclosures are blocked days before an election

Started

Oct 26, 2026

• #FEC
• #Government
• #Elections
• #Outage