Compliance
AI Bots Allegedly Hack FEC Servers Just Days Before Midterms
October 28, 2026 | Karen Kulivan
The Federal Election Commission experienced a system outage on October 27 that prevented all electronic filing just days before the midterm elections, raising concerns about transparency in campaign finance disclosure. The 24-hour reporting requirement for independent expenditures of $1,000 or more during election years means groups must quickly disclose spending that supports or opposes candidates, but the FEC system outage has made compliance impossible. If the outage extends into next week, groups could spend money without immediate disclosure until after the election ends, undermining the transparency that federal election reporting requirements are designed to provide. The FEC has stated it will not impose penalties on late reports affected by the outage as long as filers submit their disclosures within 24 hours of the system being restored.
