Wednesday, December 15, 2021
The FEC campaign finance filing system has been offline since Monday night after an FEC officer cited a breach attempt; voting is not affected.
The Federal Election Commission's electronic filing system went offline late Monday, October 26, about a week before the November 3 midterm elections. The outage began around 10 p.m. Eastern. In an email to campaign compliance firms, an FEC electronic filings officer wrote, "We have a bad actor attempting to breach FEC systems," according to Reuters, which viewed the message. The FEC itself has confirmed only that the system is offline and that its IT staff are working to restore service.
The FEC tracks campaign money. It does not run elections, count ballots or manage voter rolls, so the outage does not affect anyone's ability to vote. What it stops is disclosure. Committees cannot submit the 24-hour and 48-hour reports that show late spending on specific races, but past filings are still searchable on the site. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency referred questions to the FEC. The FBI has not commented. No suspect has been named, and there is no public word yet on whether any data was accessed.
As of Tuesday afternoon the filing system was still down, with no timeline for a fix. The hacking claim rests on one internal email reported by Reuters, and federal agencies have not yet described the incident in their own words. Expect the details to change as they do.
A breach attempt at an election agency, even one that never touches a ballot, lands in the week when fraud aimed at voters tends to peak. Expect texts and emails that borrow the language of the news: an urgent donation request, a warning that your registration has a problem, a link to check your polling place. Treat each one as one of the phishing scams it may be. Go to your state or county election office's own website instead of tapping the link. Give to a campaign only through a page you typed in yourself. Turn on multi-factor authentication for email and bank accounts, since a stolen password is the most common way in.
Fake audio and video tend to surge in the same window. Skills for identifying misinformation help you check a clip before you share it, so a rumor does not reach your family through you.
This week, confirm your polling place and hours directly with your county election office. Let the older members of your household know that a real election office will never ask for payment to register or vote. Be Prepared Not Scared!
