Hackers target US campaign finance system days before midterm elections

A notice from the FEC indicated a "bad actor" attempted to compromise its systems just as the nation gears up for its most costly elections yet.

The Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) website reportedly became the target of hackers, causing disruptions to campaign financing disclosures right before the midterm elections.

According to Reuters, an FEC email sent to a compliance firm stated, “We have a bad actor trying to breach FEC systems. As a result, we’ve had to temporarily suspend our web-facing services.”

This service interruption meant organizations could not submit the FEC’s required 24 and 48-hour spending reports, which monitor how political entities and candidates allocate funds for specific races.

The system showed it was offline after 10:15 pm EST on Monday (2:15 am GMT on Tuesday), though an update posted Tuesday at 8:17 pm EST confirmed, “The issue has been identified and a fix is being implemented.”

The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency directed inquiries to the FEC. Democratic FEC Commissioner Dara Lindenbaum clarified on X, “This has NOTHING to do with voter files or voter registration. Those are maintained by the states. The FEC only handles federal campaign finance findings. “We are working hard to restore the systems as soon as possible.”

These midterms are now the most expensive US elections in history, with AdImpact tracking roughly $11.21bn spent on advertising and future reservations to date. This figure exceeds the $11.2bn spent during the 2024 elections, which included $3.2bn in the contest between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Independent political committees, known as Super PACs, are heavily involved, as they permit unlimited donations from wealthy individuals and corporations for campaign spending with limited constraints. Brendan Glavin, research director at OpenSecrets, noted that Super PACs and dark money groups have averaged $50m daily over the last week. Glavin remarked, “It’s a big deal. In the last days of the election, this is the only way for us to keep track of where the money is being spent.”