41-Hour FEC Blackout Hides Final Weeks of Political Spending
Hackers forced the agency to take its filing system offline just as daily ad spending hit its peak, blocking public access to reports on how outside groups spent over $250 million.
By Samir Patterson ·
The Federal Election Commission took its electronic filing system offline for nearly 41 hours on Wednesday to stop a cyberattack. The shutdown blocked public access to mandatory disclosure reports from super PACs and dark money groups. This occurred during the final days of the midterm election cycle when spending is at its highest.
The outage began Monday night when the FEC posted a notice about major problems in its systems. It restored most services just after 10 p.m. ET on Wednesday. During this period, organizations could not file 24-hour and 48-hour reports that detail how much they are spending to help or hurt candidates.
Campaign finance experts said the timing was critical. Super PACs and dark money groups spent an average of more than $50 million per day in the week before the outage, according to Brendan Glavin, research director at OpenSecrets. More than $250 million in spending was reported on October 20 alone.
Molly White, a campaign finance watchdog who tracks spending by crypto and Big Tech industries, said the lack of data was a major problem. “We didn’t have access to the last-minute spending, which is really ramped up as the election draws nearer,” White said. “We have no visibility into that when the filing systems are down.” She added that the situation was “pretty devastating this close to the election.”
An FEC officer told campaign compliance firms late Monday that the agency took services offline after a “bad actor” tried to breach its systems. This information came from an email reviewed by Reuters. Managers had to reset their passwords before they could log back in once the system was restored.
The FEC did not announce the cause of the outage or return requests for comment on Wednesday. The agency referred questions to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI. Both agencies also referred questions back to the FEC. Reuters could not establish the motive for the hacking effort.
Hilary Braseth, executive director of OpenSecrets, said in a statement released before the system was restored that “Disclosure delayed is disclosure denied.” She argued that transparency is a fundamental public safeguard when hundreds of millions of dollars flood political airwaves in the final days before an election.
Kyle Sandy, cybersecurity director at IT security firm Logically, said taking the system offline was the right decision. “It tells me the FEC detected something they couldn’t immediately scope and chose a known outage over an unknown risk,” Sandy said. He noted this gave the agency time to ensure hackers did not alter data.
The FEC does not administer U.S. elections, so the outage did not affect voters’ ability to cast ballots on November 3. However, the lack of information and the timing of the hack stirred conspiracy theories in the industry. White noted that the outage would allow unscrupulous actors to hide unpopular last-minute spending.
