FEC Restores Filing System After 41-Hour Outage

The Federal Election Commission restored its electronic filing system Wednesday night after an outage of nearly 41 hours disrupted campaign-finance disclosures in the final days before the November 3 midterm elections. The agency has not publicly confirmed what caused the outage, though an FEC officer told compliance firms that a “bad actor” had attempted to breach its systems. The outage prevented campaigns and political committees from submitting certain required spending reports, including filings due within 24 or 48 hours. Previously filed records remained searchable, but new disclosures could not be submitted through the electronic system while it was offline. The interruption delayed public access to information about political spending; the available reporting does not establish that any spending went undisclosed permanently. The FEC said campaigns would not be fined for outage-related late submissions if they filed the required reports within 24 hours after the system returned online. The agency’s public statements described the service disruption but did not confirm the attempted-breach account relayed in the officer’s email. The timing coincided with a period of...