President Trump fired the two remaining Democratic members of the Election Assistance Commission on Thursday and allowed the lone Republican commissioner to resign, leaving the only federal agency devoted solely to election administration with zero commissioners and no ability to take official action months before the 2026 midterm elections.
The terminations came by email. Morgan DeWitt Snow, deputy director of presidential personnel in the Executive Office of the President, sent identical notices to Democratic commissioners Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland. The message was brief, as Votebeat reported:
"On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service."
Republican Commissioner Christy McCormick was allowed to resign rather than face termination, three sources within the agency told Votebeat. McCormick, reached by phone, declined to comment. The fourth seat was already empty, Republican Commissioner Donald Palmer voluntarily departed earlier this year and joined the Heritage Foundation.
The result: a four-member bipartisan commission created by Congress now has no members at all. The EAC cannot certify voting systems, distribute federal election funds, maintain the national mail voter registration form, or take any other official action until new commissioners are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
The White House moved days after the Supreme Court handed down its 6-3 ruling in Trump v. Slaughter on June 29, which overturned decades of precedent and held that the president may remove leaders of independent agencies, in that case, the Federal Trade Commission, without showing cause. Trump called the ruling "the Greatest Increase in Presidential Power in the last 100 years" on social media.
A White House official defended the EAC firings by invoking the decision directly. That official told Votebeat:
"The President, and head of the Executive Branch, reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America's elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted. The Slaughter decision gives the President precedence to do so."
The administration also said it has been working "across all agencies and local partners to safeguard elections from fraud and abuse" and to strengthen election infrastructure ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The Slaughter ruling was one of several major executive-power decisions the Court issued in a packed June docket. In a separate case involving the Federal Reserve, the justices recognized a different rule for Fed governors, pointing to the long historical independence of central banking institutions. That distinction matters: it suggests the Court sees some agency structures as more protected from presidential removal than others.
Whether the Slaughter precedent cleanly applies to bipartisan election commissions like the EAC remains untested. UCLA election law professor Rick Hasen told Votebeat the answer is far from settled:
"It's an open question about the EAC and the [Federal Election Commission]. The question has not been tested as to whether political entities created with bipartisan balance might be subject to another exception."
The Help America Vote Act, which created the EAC after the disputed 2000 election, requires that no more than two of its four commissioners come from the same party. The president is supposed to consider recommendations from Senate and House majority and minority leaders when nominating replacements. Vacancies must be filled "in the manner in which the original appointment was made", meaning presidential nomination and Senate confirmation.
Hasen noted that the HAVA recommendation process is "more a custom than something that's in the statute itself." But the bipartisan design of the commission, two Democrats, two Republicans, is written into the law, and whether that structural feature creates a legal shield against at-will removal is the question no court has yet answered.
The EAC firings follow a similar move earlier this year when Trump fired Ellen Weintraub, the Democratic commissioner and chair of the Federal Election Commission. Weintraub had served in holdover status after her term expired. She publicly disputed the legality of her removal, telling supporters on social media, "There's a legal way to replace FEC commissioners, this isn't it." But Weintraub did not sue, leaving the legal question unresolved.
That pattern, fire first, let the fired official decide whether to litigate, has become a recurring feature of the administration's approach to executive power. If none of the EAC commissioners challenge their removals in court, the precedent will harden without ever being tested.
Hicks and McCormick had both served on the commission since 2014. Hicks, a Democrat, previously worked for Democrats on the House Administration Committee and was serving as commission chair. McCormick, a Republican, had previously worked as a senior trial attorney in the voting section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
Hovland, a Democrat, joined in 2019 after a unanimous Senate confirmation vote. He had served as acting chief counsel to the Senate Rules Committee and as senior counsel on election matters. His unanimous confirmation is worth noting: it means Senate Republicans raised no objection to his appointment.
The EAC's responsibilities are narrow but consequential. It is the only federal agency that tests and certifies voting systems against the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines. It accredits the labs that conduct those tests. It distributes federal election funds to states. It maintains the national mail voter registration form. And it offers best practices and guidance to the roughly 8,000 state and local election jurisdictions that actually run American elections.
After years of vacancies, the commission regained stability in 2019 when the Senate confirmed new members. The urgency of the EAC's work had grown after Russian interference in the 2016 election exposed vulnerabilities in state election infrastructure. Now, heading into the 2026 midterms, the agency is once again without leadership.
Democrats moved quickly to frame the firings as a threat to election integrity. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it a "brazen attempt to seize control of our elections before a single vote is cast." Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Joe Morelle issued a joint statement, as AP News reported, accusing the president of trying "to dismantle yet another independent guardrail of our democracy designed to keep elections fair and secure."
Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican, offered a more pointed criticism: "Donald Trump wants to eliminate oversight of his administration's oversight, and that's what this is about."
But the firings also carry a policy context that the Democratic framing conveniently omits. Trump issued an executive order in March 2025 requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. The EAC had declined to update the national voter registration form to include that requirement. A judge blocked the executive order, but the commission's resistance to the citizenship-documentation push put it at odds with the administration's stated election-security priorities.
The administration's broader push to tighten election security has met resistance across multiple fronts, including legal and political pushback on other major policy initiatives. Whether the EAC firings represent a principled assertion of executive authority or an overreach that leaves election infrastructure unsupervised during a critical period depends largely on what happens next.
The White House has not said whether it plans to nominate replacement commissioners or how quickly it intends to fill the seats. The Senate confirmation process is rarely fast, and HAVA's requirement that the president consider recommendations from congressional leaders of both parties adds another layer of negotiation.
No indication has emerged that Hicks, Hovland, or McCormick plan to challenge their removals in court. If they follow Weintraub's path and decline to litigate, the question of whether bipartisan election commissions enjoy any special protection from presidential removal will remain unanswered, a legal gray zone that future presidents of either party could exploit.
Some Republicans in Congress have already expressed unease with the pace and scope of the administration's personnel moves. Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis has warned that certain administration missteps could carry political costs for the GOP heading into the midterms.
Meanwhile, the EAC's voting-system certification program sits idle. States preparing for 2026 may find themselves unable to get new equipment certified against federal standards. The agency's guidance function, helping local officials navigate the operational complexities of running elections, goes dark. Federal election funds remain in limbo.
The administration has framed its election-integrity efforts as part of a broader campaign to ensure that every legal vote is counted and that the system is hardened against fraud. That goal commands broad public support. But dismantling the one federal agency specifically built to help states run clean elections, and leaving nothing in its place, is a strange way to pursue it.
If the president wants commissioners who share his priorities, the path is clear: nominate them and send them to the Senate. Leaving the seats empty is not election security. It is a vacuum.
