FEC electronic filing system back online after multiday outage

Developed over time first seen 2 weeks ago

The Hill · 2 weeks ago

The US Federal Election Commission’s electronic filing system came back online on Wednesday 28 October, nearly two days after an outage began late on Monday. The system lets campaigns, political parties and political action committees submit reports on donations and spending. Previously filed reports remained searchable during the disruption. When filing resumed, the FEC said it was still working to restore the filing system’s search feature and its notification service.

The interruption came in the final week before the 3 November midterm elections, when some large late contributions must be reported within 48 hours and certain independent spending within 24 hours. That temporarily delayed public disclosure of new filings. Reuters reported that an email described an attempted breach of FEC systems, but the commission had not publicly established the cause of the outage or said whether any data was accessed. The FEC handles campaign finance reporting; it does not administer voting, so the filing outage did not affect how ballots were cast.

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In short

Electronic campaign finance filing resumed on 28 October after nearly two days offline.
The outage delayed disclosure of some last-minute donations and spending.
An attempted breach was reported, but the FEC had not publicly confirmed the cause.

How this story developed

2 weeks ago The US Federal Election Commission’s electronic filing system came back online on Wednesday 28 October, nearly two days after an outage began late on Monday. The system lets campaigns, political parties and political action committees submit reports on donations and spending.

28 Oct, 21:58The Hill FEC electronic filing system back online after multiday outage
4 Nov, 00:41Federal Election Commission Last-minute disclosure periods reminder
4 Nov, 00:41Reuters Cyberattack concealed political spending by big donors before US midterm elections

Explained simply

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is the US agency responsible for collecting campaign finance reports. These reports show money raised and spent by election campaigns, political parties and political action committees, groups that raise or spend money to influence elections.

Election rules require some large donations and independent spending to be reported within 48 or 24 hours. Making those reports public helps people see who is funding political activity, particularly during an election campaign.

The FEC’s filing system is separate from the systems used to run elections and count votes. An interruption to filing can delay public access to new finance reports, but does not affect how people cast their ballots.