A news report citing an email says a hacker targeted FEC systems and that the agency temporarily shut down its web-facing services. The FEC has not confirmed a hacking attempt or a successful attack, and its statement does not address the report. It has not said whether its systems were breached or whether any information was accessed, and it has not identified anyone responsible. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

The FEC website's status message showed the filing system down from around 10 p.m. Eastern on Monday. Some accounts put the time at 10:15 p.m. The outage began about one week before the November 3 midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress for the final two years of President Donald Trump's term.

With the system down, political organizations cannot electronically file 24-hour and 48-hour spending reports. Those reports disclose spending on individual races in the final days before an election. Delays could leave voters with less information about super PAC spending just before they cast ballots. Steven Mele, a partner at the political finance compliance firm MBA Consulting Group, said, "I've never seen this in 26 years."

The FEC's main website and its search function are still working, so previously filed campaign-finance reports remain available to journalists, campaigns and the public. The commission tracks political and campaign spending but does not administer elections. States run them, and the outage does not affect vote tallies.