THIS IS NOT A DRILL. The Federal Election Commission's electronic filing system has been offline since about 10 p.m. Eastern on Monday, one week before the midterms. And in the most terrifying development of all, the FEC wants you to know you can still search the old reports.
The OLD reports. From BEFORE. Stay calm. Do not refresh your browser more than twice.
Here are the facts, and they are exact, because Siren Sam does not panic about the wrong things, only about all of the right things at full volume. According to an email obtained by Reuters, an FEC official told campaign compliance firms Monday night that a "bad actor" was attempting to breach the agency's systems and that public-facing services had been shut down. The FEC said its "electronic filing system is currently offline and our IT staff are actively working to restore service." Tuesday night it said it had identified the issue and was putting in a fix. As of early Wednesday, CNBC reported, the system was still down.
Why does this matter? Because in the final 20 days before an election, candidate committees must report certain contributions of $1,000 or more within 48 hours, and outside groups must disclose certain spending within 24 hours. That window started Oct. 15 and runs through Nov. 1. This is the busiest week of the most expensive election cycle ever, and the government's receipt drawer is jammed shut.
And now the detail that has this reporter clutching a desk lamp. The FEC says it will not impose penalties on late reports, as long as filers submit within 24 hours of the system coming back. So, to recap the emergency: political committees cannot file their paperwork, and if they don't file their paperwork, nothing happens to them. Ladies and gentlemen, the campaign finance industry has been handed a snow day.
It gets worse. According to MultiState, any enforcement actions would be unlikely anyway because the FEC lacks a quorum. The watchdog is offline AND doesn't have enough watchdogs. We have reached the "dog left a sticky note on the door" phase of oversight.
Steven Mele, a political compliance executive, told Reuters, "I've never seen this in 26 years." Sir, nobody has. Somewhere in Washington, thousands of super PAC treasurers are holding finished spreadsheets in the air like lighters at a concert, with nowhere to send them.
The FEC hasn't said who was behind the attempt, whether anyone actually got in, or whether any data was compromised. The FBI deferred to the FEC. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency didn't respond to CNBC. So the official status of American campaign money transparency is a webpage saying a fix is being implemented, which is also what my cable company says.
The FEC doesn't run elections, and the outage has no effect on anyone's ability to vote. Your ballot is fine. It's just the part where you find out who paid for the ad you're yelling at that has gone dark.
This has been Siren Sam. Remain indoors. Keep your receipts. Somebody should.
This article is satire. The Demorat is a parody news site; real facts are drawn from the linked sources, and jokes, invented scenes, and fictional characters are not real.
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