The FEC filing release looks less like an accident and more like a cover-up The FEC's electronic filing system went dark for nearly 41 hours this week, and the timing could hardly be worse. Super PACs and Apple money groups spent more than $50 million a day in the final stretch before the midterms, with more than $250 million reported on Oct. 20 alone. Then the system went offline, and the mandatory 24 and 48 hour expense reports just stopped showing up. Campaign finance watchdogs are freaking out, and with good reason. Molly White, who tracks political spending, noted that it would be a convenient way for bad actors to bury last-minute unpopular spending, and while she can't prove that's what happened, it's where minds go fast. The FEC says it pulled the system to contain a suspected cyber attack and that the vote itself is unaffected. But the agency provided few details, and the vacuum fueled speculation across the industry. Whether the hack was opportunistic or something more deliberate, the effect was the same: the public lost visibility into the money that flooded the final days of the campaign, just when that visibility mattered most. Term do not miss.

The FEC filing release looks less like an accident and more like a cover-up The FEC's electronic filing system went dark for nearly 41 hours this week, and the timing could hardly be worse. Super PACs and Apple money groups spent more than $50 million a day in the final stretch before the midterms, with more than $250 million reported on Oct. 20 alone. Then the system went offline, and the mandatory 24 and 48 hour expense reports just stopped showing up. Campaign finance watchdogs are freaking out, and with good reason. Molly White, who tracks political spending, noted that it would be a convenient way for bad actors to bury last-minute unpopular spending, and while she can't prove that's what happened, it's where minds go fast. The FEC says it pulled the system to contain a suspected cyber attack and that the vote itself is unaffected. But the agency provided few details, and the vacuum fueled speculation across the industry. Whether the hack was opportunistic or something more deliberate, the effect was the same: the public lost visibility into the money that flooded the final days of the campaign, just when that visibility mattered most. Term do not miss.