The electronic filing system of the US Federal Election Commission (FEC), the agency that enforces federal campaign finance law and publishes committee disclosures online, has gone offline following 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 filed by PACs and other entities remained available for the public to view, yet the outage suggested that last-minute spending could go unreported.

With just six days until Election Day, FEC filings showed no expenditures since Sunday from the cryptocurrency industry-aligned super PACs Fairshake, Defend American Jobs, Protect Progress, Fellowship and Digital Freedom Fund. Cointelegraph reached out to Fairshake for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

Under federal rules, 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. Those short deadlines are designed to give the public a near-real-time view of money moving in the closing stretch, which is why an outage during this window has direct implications for transparency into last-minute spending.

Some spending was disclosed before the outage. 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 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 prove consequential for many in the crypto industry, which supports digital asset legislation in Congress as well as state-level rules and policies. Lawmakers in Congress failed to advance a crypto market structure bill in September, prompting Fairshake and other industry advocates to support 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." With Election Day approaching, whether the system is back in time for the remaining 24- and 48-hour reporting deadlines, and how quickly filings made during the disruption appear once service returns, will shape how complete a picture the public has of final-week spending.

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 ultimately lost his Senate seat but announced that he would run against incumbent Jon Husted in 2026, setting up another election with crypto industry money 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 in the same race. The crypto PACs are just some of the groups seeking to influence Ohio voters in the 2026 midterms, with reports of tens of millions of dollars being spent by Democratic- and Republican-aligned organizations.

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