The Federal Election Commission's electronic filing system went offline after hacking attempts targeted the agency's website on Wednesday, interrupting the disclosure of political spending just one week before the November 3 midterm elections.
An email reviewed by Reuters indicated that the attempted intrusion prompted the agency to temporarily shut down web-facing services. The FEC confirmed that its electronic filing system was offline but declined to comment further on the cause of the outage. "At this time, the FEC's electronic filing system is currently offline and our IT staff are actively working to restore service," the commission said in a statement.