Federal Election Commission federal obligations through FY2026

Campaign-finance disclosure is not this $43.2 million

FEC Form 3 filings, PAC reports, and super PAC independent-expenditure notices are a different public database. $43,199,193.32 is what the Commission itself obligated on federal awards through FY2026—filing-system contractors, IT, facilities, legal support, and other instruments tagged to CGAC 360. A presidential cycle with more money reported does not automatically raise this total. A modernization contract can raise it in an off year.

Ninety-five awards is a thin book. Dividing $43,199,193.32 by 95 yields about $454,728 per award. That high mean on a low count fits a small regulator buying a modest number of support vehicles, including potentially large systems work. The packet has no median and no split between IT and other awards.

95 awards omit the enforcement docket

Matters Under Review, conciliation agreements, and civil penalties are FEC enforcement statistics. They are not the 95 USAspending rows. Civil penalties paid to the government are receipts, not Commission obligations. Mixing them with $43.2 million would confuse fines collected with contracts signed.

Commissioner and staff salaries generally never appear as awards. The $43,199,193.32 understates the FEC’s full operating cost if a reader expected the award file to equal the appropriation. It is complete as an award ledger.

FY2026 cutoff across election cycles

Fiscal year 2026 is the latest year on the packet. Federal election cycles are even-numbered calendar years; fiscal years are not the same slice. The $43,199,193.32 is a cumulative USAspending stock through FY2026, not “FEC spending in the 2026 election.” Multi-year filing-system awards remain in the running total until closed.

Outlays are unpublished. Treat the figure as commitments for awarding agency 360.

CGAC 360

Federal Election Commission rows use awarding-agency code 360. The Election Assistance Commission, if present in USAspending as a separate body, would use a different code. SpendingVault’s /agencies/360/ path stays on the FEC. Code 360 is an identifier, not a committee ID such as C00401224.

State tables versus contribution geography

LobbyVault and FEC contribution files map donors by state. This SpendingVault state table maps FEC-as-buyer geography on 95 awards. They are not substitutes. A large state share here is a vendor or performance location, not a claim that that state’s donors gave more.

Open the FEC agency page for the live $43,199,193.32 and 95-award filters. Use the all-agencies directory to find CGAC 360. Dollar rank among independents is not a ranking of campaign spending in the country.

Filing systems, election cycles, and 95 agency awards

Campaign-finance filings live in the FEC’s disclosure database. They are not the 95 USAspending awards. A presidential cycle with more money reported does not automatically raise $43,199,193.32. A modernization contract for the filing system can raise it in an off year. Keep disclosure volume and the Commission’s own award book on separate clips.

Civil penalties paid to the government are receipts, not Commission obligations. Mixing fines with the $43.2 million would confuse enforcement outcomes with contracts signed. Committee IDs such as those on Form 3 are not CGAC 360. The state table for agency 360 is vendor geography, not donor geography.

Staff and commissioner salaries generally never appear among the 95 rows, so the table understates full operating cost. FY2026 is a fiscal-year cutoff, not an election-cycle label. Use the FEC agency page for live tables. Do not read this roll-up as a substitute for contribution files. Outlays on the 95 instruments are unpublished.

Independent-expenditure notices and Form 3 filings are disclosure products. They are not the 95 Commission awards. A cycle with more super PAC spending does not automatically raise $43,199,193.32. A filing-system vehicle can raise it in a midterm off year. Cite contribution files for campaign money and the agency 360 page for FEC-as-buyer dollars. FY2026 is a fiscal cutoff, not a cycle label. Donor-state maps are the other database; this state table is vendor geography.

Help-desk and data-center awards can sit among the 95 rows without being labeled as filing-system work. The packet has no NAICS table. The $43,199,193.32 is unsplit through FY2026 for CGAC 360. Open award-level records if the question is which vendor runs which system. Use the FEC agency page for live totals. Campaign disbursements remain Form filings. This state table is still vendor geography, not donor geography.

Questions

How much has the FEC obligated on USAspending?

The Federal Election Commission shows $43,199,193.32 in obligations through FY2026 across 95 awards. Awarding-agency CGAC 360 is the filter. The total is not campaign contributions, independent expenditures, or civil penalties collected. USAspending.gov records this as awarding-agency obligations through FY2026, not cash outlays. The live table for CGAC 360 is the source for the current 95-award book.

Why does the FEC have only 95 awards?

The extract counts 95 instruments for CGAC 360. Dividing $43.2 million by that count yields about $454,728 per award. A small disclosure agency often buys fewer support contracts than a grant-maker issues. The packet has no median. That figure uses only the packet totals. The extract has no median and no contract-versus-assistance split. FY2026 is the warehouse cutoff, not a single-year appropriation.

What is agency code 360?

360 is the USAspending awarding-agency CGAC identifier for the Federal Election Commission. SpendingVault uses it in /agencies/360/. It is not an FEC committee ID. SpendingVault URLs under the agency path filter to that CGAC identifier. It is an accounting tag, not a quality score. Totals on this page are obligations through FY2026.

Does this $43 million include money campaigns spent?

No. Campaign disbursements are reported on FEC forms, not as Commission awards. This page reports FEC awarding-agency obligations of $43,199,193.32 through FY2026. Outlays on those 95 awards are unpublished in the packet. Outlays are unpublished in this packet, so this page does not estimate cash already paid. Refresh the agency page after USAspending updates rather than treating the current stock as frozen.