The US Federal Election Commission (FEC) filing system is offline after reports of a hack, potentially obscuring expenditures by super political action committees (PACs) and other groups in the final days before the 2026 midterm elections.
As of Tuesday at 7:48 pm UTC, the FEC said it was continuing to experience an “electronic filing system outage,” but was working to resolve the issue. Campaign finance data by PACs and other entities were still available for the public to view, but the system outage suggested that last-minute spending could go unreported.
For example, with just six days until Election Day, FEC filings showed no expenditures from the cryptocurrency industry-aligned Super PACs Fairshake, Defend American Jobs, Protect Progress, Fellowship and Digital Freedom Fund since Sunday. Cointelegraph reached out to Fairshake for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
Super PACs are required to report certain spending to the FEC within 24 hours of the funds being used, provided the expenditures total $1,000 or more. Candidates for House and Senate seats, likewise, are expected to report contributions of $1,000 or more within 48 hours in the 20 days before an election.
Digital Freedom Fund, a PAC launched by Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, reported on Sunday that it had spent more than $572,000 on text messages to support various Republican Senate candidates, with the majority going to bolster Ken Paxton’s campaign in Texas. Protect Progress’ most recent expenditure before the FEC outage showed more than $50,000 for a direct mail campaign supporting Representative Aisha Wahab in California’s 14th district.
Related: CLARITY vote failure could stoke more crypto PAC spending in key races
The 2026 midterms could be consequential for many in the crypto industry who support digital asset laws passing in Congress and state-level legislation and policies. Lawmakers in Congress failed to advance a crypto market structure bill in September, leading to Fairshake and other industry advocates supporting the reelection of those who voted in favor of the legislation.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that the disruption was caused by the FEC website being targeted by a hacker or hackers, according to an email. An FEC spokesperson told Cointelegraph that its IT staff were ”actively working to restore service.”
History repeats itself in Ohio with crypto PAC spending on Senate candidates
In 2024, Fairshake spent about $41 million opposing Senator Sherrod Brown’s reelection bid against Republican Bernie Moreno. The Democratic lawmaker ended up losing his Senate seat, but announced that he would run against incumbent Jon Husted in 2026, leading to another election with money from the crypto industry flowing into attack ads.
Before the FEC outage, Fairshake reported spending $56 million on media to oppose Brown and support Husted, while the Digital Freedom Fund disclosed more than $7 million in expenditures for the same race. The crypto PACs are just some of the groups interested in influencing Ohio voters in the 2026 midterms, with reports of tens of millions of dollars being spent from Democratic- and Republican-aligned organizations.
Magazine: Cybersecurity’s Black October: How to protect yourself