Campaign Finance Filing System Goes Down Before Midterms

October 28, 2026 - 06:00

The Federal Election Commission is working to restore a website used for electronic campaign finance filings after the system went offline in the run-up to the midterm elections. The outage left campaigns and political committees unable to submit required disclosure reports through the agency's electronic filing portal.

The commission confirmed the problem and said a fix was in progress, though it did not give a timeline for when service would return. The timing is sensitive because candidates and committees face deadlines to report fundraising and spending, and the public relies on those filings to see who is funding political activity.

Campaign finance watchdogs noted that a prolonged outage could delay transparency at a moment when voters are looking for information about money in races. Committees that cannot file electronically may need to use backup methods, and it was not immediately clear whether the agency would offer flexibility on deadlines.

The FEC has dealt with technical problems before, but an outage this close to an election draws extra attention. Officials have not said what caused the failure or whether any data was affected. They urged filers to watch for updates and to keep records ready for submission once the system is back online.